Happy Birthday, Noah!

Newborn baby Noah at the hospital.

Our baby all grown up (kind of)!

We made it! Noah has finally reached one year. It has been amazing watching him grow from a tiny, fragile baby into an active, squirmy wormy. In addition to being a squirmy wormy, Noah is a very curious, friendly, happy baby. He loves crawling around to explore different places and touch different things. Although he seems pretty social, he also seems to enjoy playing on his own, which is pretty nice for me since it means he's relatively low maintenance. Every once in a while he'll crawl over to me and get me involved (or sometimes even give me a kiss!), but for the most part he's pretty content pulling his books off the shelves, banging blocks together, and taking things in and out of his dump truck. It's so fun watching him turning into a little person! This year seems to have flown by, but it also feels like it's been forever. I can't believe he's so big and so mobile already, but I also can barely remember life before him. So much happens in just one year!

Noah has not yet started walking, but he is getting better and better at using the walker everyday. In this past week he's also managed to stand by himself quite a few times; even for 10 or 15 seconds on a couple of occasions. I think he will probably be at least taking his first steps in the next month. Although sometimes I wonder if I really should be that excited about him walking...

Noah's vocabulary is still pretty limited, and he hasn't said his first word yet. He's said "mama" many times, but I'm not sure he really knew what he was saying. Words that I think he can recognize are "mommy/mama", "hug", "ball", "walk", and "clap". When we say mommy, hug, or ball, he usually points or looks in the right direction. When I mentioned walking, he usually looks or points at his walker. Clapping actually just started today. A lot of babies start clapping I think at around 6 months? but Noah's first time was this morning. While we were playing with his stuffed baseball, he started throwing it (intentionally, with one arm, and in a forward direction; Peter was very excited) and as usual, I was very excited and I clapped for him, then all of a sudden he started clapping for himself! At first I didn't really know what he was doing because at that point I had given up on his clapping, but then he kept doing it! Later today while in the car he started clapping excitedly, so I started clapping with him, while saying "yay, you're clapping!" Every time I would say "clap" or "clapping" during the car ride he would start clapping more excitedly.

In the eating department, Noah is still fairly low maintenance. He eats most things that we feed him, and seems more into "real" food (not from jar) these days. For a while he really wasn't into the food I made, but I think now he's tired of the soupiness of baby food. While this is a good thing, it also means I now have more work to do. Oops. This weekend we went a little crazy and gave him some pizza and kimbap. I am also very excited to report that Noah is now a competent straw-user. I had been working on the straw since I think he was 6 months old, but will little success. He would always choke on the liquid. Now he can use a straw cup and hold it himself. Yesss! I've also just about weaned him to formula from straw-cup, except for 1 feeding before bedtime. I used to hate nursing and said that I'd wean him after 4 months, but now I'm kind of having a hard time letting go. Weird.

I think that's it for Noah's 1 year update! I will be starting work tomorrow, and Noah will be starting daycare Tuesday. We're excited for the new year!