Month 13 (Mixed-Bag)

It seems that August's personality completely blossomed this past month. He really is at such an enjoyable age right now. Don't get me wrong, we are at a whole new stage of challenges, but it's so fun to see the person he is becoming. 

While he absolutely refuses to even try to walk, he is climbing up a storm. No chair, couch, box, or window sill is off limits. He spends a large portion of his day on the couch, just because he can. He must have grown a bit taller as he can now open so many kitchen and bathroom drawers that were previously out of reach, and loves to try to grab things off of the kitchen table. He spends quite a bit of time just lining his toys up, while placing a few of the strays in the most random juxtapositions. In his evening bath time, we spend a large portion of the time sorting his squirt animals by color. 

Verbally he has developed a bit more as well. His favorite word remains dog, yet he says duck, bear, and ball quite a bit as well. He's just started saying his 'g's', and loves to get our attention with his comical, and overly dramatic fake cough. As with the walking, he refuses to try to say 'mommy' or 'daddy', but sure loves to watch us sound it out. He loves reading his books more than anything. He will stalk you with his daily pick until you sit down and read it at least 5 times in a row, then he will go pick out another. He still loves his Bear series of books, and we manage to work all 7 into our pre-bed routine every single night, surprisingly in the same exact order every night as well.  Most notably, he has begun sleeping through the night consistently!!! I really did doubt we would ever see the day, but am so thankful it is here. We still have our rough nights but they are much fewer and far between. He's getting a bit better about falling asleep on his own, though there is still a bit of a fussy wind down he has yet to overcome by himself. The past few mornings we have even awoken to hear him playing quite pleasantly in his bed. But perhaps my favorite, new development of all is that this past week he started crawling up to me, flashing his big blue eyes and make me melt smile, and then giving the biggest bear hug he can muster. Trust me, it doesn't get any better than that.