Scrapping and Yelling: From my livejournal

I haven't talked much about Avery lately. What can I say? He's really joyful and hilarious! He finally started crawling about a week and a half ago. He's super fast. As soon as he got the hang of crawling, he started attempting to pull up on things. He hasn't been particularly successful in getting himself upright, but it does mean he can pull everything off of whatever it is he was trying to pull up on. He loves reaching up onto the train table and pulling Caelan's trains onto the floor. He also spent some time today pulling down some laundry I was folding on the couch. He's seriously Godzilla Baby. He loves nothing more than to make giant messes and destroy things. Now that he's mobile, Caelan really has to watch it if he's trying to build a tower of blocks or an elaborate train track. Avery will just crawl on over and rip it all apart if we don't catch him in time. If you put him on the floor in Caelan's room, he will crawl over to this shelf thing we have full of baskets of toys and just start pulling out all the baskets one at a time and dragging all their contents out all over the floor. He finds it absolutely hilarious and cackles wildly and claps while doing it!

He worries me a little because he doesn't say any real words yet. He sometimes says Dada with seeming understanding, and he does the "MAAA... MAAA!" cry when he wants me, but that's about it. I think it's actually normal, but my perception is all warped because Caelan was saying something ridiculous like 15-20 words by one year old. He is extremely vocal, trying out new sounds and trying to imitate us. He also understands a lot of what we say, so I don't believe it's actually cause for concern. He seems more interested in physical milestones than Caelan ever was. He likes to roll his cars around, roll a ball back and forth with us, and take things out of containers then put them back in. He can identify your nose (but not his yet!), the fan, and sometimes some other stuff. He's getting better at that kind of stuff. He's learning to point to things and we're trying to teach him to wave. He loves giving hugs and is the snuggliest baby in the history of babies. He is just a giant cuddle monster! He loves tickles and has an infectious giggle. He also has the sweetest voice ever when he babbles. People instantly fall in love with him!

He hasn't taken to eating solid food at all. I can't decide whether I think it just hasn't clicked for him or he actually has a mouth/tongue issue. I thought for a minute he might have a slight tongue tie, but I'm just not sure. One of the main reasons he doesn't eat a lot of solids is because he tends to throw up after a couple bites. He has trouble working the food around his mouth and he doesn't like to swallow. He'll try to get the food back out of his mouth using his fingers, then he gags himself and throws up. We talked to the pediatrician about it last month. She couldn't see anything wrong with his mouth but said that if he isn't eating solids by 15 months, she will refer us to an occupational therapist to see if he has any issues. In the meantime, he's obviously thriving.

I'm planning two first birthday parties for him! One will be a joint birthday party for him and a little girl from our playgroup who was born the day after him. That one will be bug-themed and will be at a local park. The day after, we're planning a small family party at my sister's house. That one will be cupcake-themed. I'm having a lot of fun! I can't believe it's been almost a year since he was born. I can't even imagine our family without him. I wish you could all meet him. He's just SO SO special... you would truly fall in love with him!

At the library, practicing crawling...