my goofy daddy

Emmett is a growing boy! Last time I documented his doings he was 8 months. He had his 1 year check up and everything went well. He got some super powered creme to treat his eczema, which works great. He checked out 24% length-for-age, 31% weight-for age and 70% head! Basically he's a smaller guy with a big CUTE noggin :-)

Emmett is continuing to enjoy his time home with Daddy. He's been a good napper. Over the past month he's transitioned to 1 nap a day getting about 2-3 hours sleep in the afternoon (noon-3:00ish). During that time Kevin tries to get as much work done as he can. Since Emmett has been sleeping a little less than before, Kevin catches up on work early mornings and sometimes the evenings now. We put in the paperwork to sign Emmett up at Aria's school for next January when he's 18 months old.

Emmett's continuing to eat well. I lasted the whole year providing milk for him (YAY me)! One week ago was the last time a pumped. So he is drinking whole milk and happy with it. He drinks about 2 cups a day. He's down to a bottle in the morning and a bottle after dinner. The rest of the time he's happy with getting his liquids from a straw sippy. He hasn't picked up how to use a regular sippy...this probably is the result of him still not holding his own bottle (his sister didn't hold her bottles either). He just doesn't get the whole tipping thing. He LOVES getting additional dairy by yogurt and cheese. He's done great with finger foods. He gobbles up whole wheat Ritz as fast as his sister and he really likes strawberries/peaches/pears. He dislikes bananas. If he doesn't like something he is very vocal about it...although if I feed him his favorites first he seems to be a little more adventurous about newer foods that remain on his tray. I can usually get him to eat meat, beans or tofu by flavoring it with dressing or soy sauce -- whatever works! (This is the opposite of his sister, plain Jane.)

His nights are ok. He still is great about staying in his crib for 11.5 hours (no eating or having to take him out) He still wakes a couple times a night half the time. He usually cries or yells out and I sleep walk to his room, find his pacifier and plug him! I'm blaming it on his huge molars that are growing in as slow as they possibly could. He's been pretty healthy over the last few months so I can't blame it on that.

He now has 9 teeth that are fully grown in (including one bottom molar). He's still drooling A LOT and he's working on the next couple molars.

We are still using cloth diapers about 60% of the time. We're sticking with disposables at night and for convenience during the day for trips out of the house.

Emmett has perfected his crawl and is quite speedy! He's cruising more this last month. He's still not very sturdy on his feet, but he's getting stronger everyday.

Emmett surprises me when he repeats words. For example, he's repeated "apple" and "elmo". He still doesn't use these words day to day. His favorite word is "da-da" and he's getting better with "ma-ma". He also has a couple words for Aria's name - "ra-ra" and "ar-ra". I think more words will be coming very soon. We haven't done much with signing but early on he picked up the sign for "more" and he continues to use it.

Emmett's getting better at clapping, waving and blowing kisses everyday. Instead of not doing it because he can't, I'm pretty sure he chooses not do it. Kevin said he'd been waving pretty consistently to cars on the trip back from dropping Aria off in the morning. Emmett has pointing down now.

Just last week Emmett pointed out a dog in a book and then we asked him "where's the doggy" and he turned a couple pages back and found the dog again. It shocked us. Little smarty pants.

Overall he's a pretty happy boy, but when he's cranky...he's really cranky. He still adores his sister even though she never lets him play with anything without her playing with it first, including his own toys! That will probably change as he gets more mobile and vocal. We love this little guy.

Aria loves combing his curls down/forward after his bath and when it dries it pretty much stays that way...she's discovered a nice look on him, I think!