Catching Up: Ari at One Year Old!

Dear Ari,

I’m quite late writing this because you have had a busy summer so far! Now I have to think back to what you were doing a month ago since you are already doing so many new things.

I expected you to be walking by your first birthday because you were so active with your legs and seemed to start standing (with support) and bearing weight quite early. But you seem pretty happy to crawl around! In the weeks before your birthday, you were walking a little when holding both of someone’s hands, and you were standing up by yourself, but not really taking steps on your own. You did take one or two tiny shuffling steps here and there sort of on your way to grabbing onto something or someone, or just before falling to the ground.

Your words: we think you know “dog” and “duck” (and knew them on your birthday). You have been babbling “dada” a lot but it was (and still is) hard to tell if you knew to apply that word to your Daddy. Most things seemed to be “kah!” or “gah!”. In the morning (and this is still true), you wake up, grin, climb over me to look down at Andrew on his dog bed, and say, “dah!” or “gah!” Sometimes it’s more like, “og!” The same sounds apply to our friends’ dog Baker and to other dogs and pictures of dogs. For a duck, you’ll make the sound of a “k” at the end of a word. And when I asked you to get your duck in the bath, you did!

Mostly you seemed (and seem) to want to imitate non-word sounds. If someone coughs, you’ll grin and make a fake cough sound. You still love blowing raspberries – now they seem more like “fart noises”. You’ve mimicked my “ah ah aaah!” and “uh uh!”, especially when touching something or doing something I’ve told you not to. You also get a big kick out of me pretending to sneeze.

One thing you started doing that really impressed me was when you would try to copy someone snapping their fingers by rubbing your fingers together and clucking your tongue at the same time!

You also loved doing “yay, Ari!” with one or both arms in air, and clapping “pat a cake” and trying to do the “roll it” part of the hand gestures.

Your daddy and I have now been parents for a full year! During the year, I would think back to “one year ago today,” to a time before I had a baby, and reflect on how much my life has changed. Now there isn’t nearly as big of a difference between my life today and what it was like one year ago. In fact, it’s gotten easier!

You have been an absolutely delightful baby. Everyone has described you as “an easy baby,” “so happy,” and “always smiling.” You seem to have a pretty even temperament and to adapt easily to change. You haven’t demonstrated any serious stranger anxiety and will grin even when you are handed off to new people.

Here are a few pictures from the day of your birthday:

In the morning, we opened the Rockin’ Rider Pony from my grandma and you tried it out with and without the rocker attachment.

In the evening, you had a tiny piece of a gluten free vegan cupcake I was sampling as a contender for your birthday party cake. It was gone so fast I hardly got any pictures!