How old is Dylan?

Thanks to much coaching and practice, if you asked Dylan this question today he'd wave his little hand around and eventually hold up one finger. I'm trying to get it on video, but haven't been successful so far.

My baby is officially one year old!

I can't believe it's been a year...but another part of me can't remember life without our little man.

Dylan's 12-month appointment isn't until next week, so I don't have stats, but here are some other fun facts about the boy:

Getting around: Dylan finally realized how exhausting (and painful, I'm sure) it was to crawl around like a walrus and decided one day he preferred the standard hands-and-knees method...and when motivated he can move pretty fast. He generally prefers the wait and see approach to things--he waits to see if what he wants will come to him (e.g. Mom, food, ball, toys). He loves to pull up on anything and everything he can find, so we've had our fair share of head bonks, but he's getting better. I don't think walking is in our near future...

Teeth: After teething for what felt like months, two tiny little teeth are barely poking through on the bottom. Based on the length of what we thought was his teething, we expected him to get 8 at once!

Eating: This may be a surprise, but Dylan LOVES food! I have only ever seen him turn away food once and after sampling it myself I understand why (side note: Gerber pick-ups raviolis are disgusting... I'll post a video as proof later).

"Talking": Dylan calls pretty much everything he sees "dada" but he uses different tones and inflection to help us know what he means... For example, "a-Da" means all done (which he only ever uses to tell us his bottle is empty and he'd like more). He uses "ma" and "mama" only when he's tired or whiny. He knows how to say baby, but it takes a little coaching to remind him he knows how. And I swear he knows duck and dog, but they sound very similar to everything else, so who knows...

Other randomness:

• He LOVES cars, but he especially loves real cars...moving ones. If he could, he'd spend all day out on the busy street near our neighborhood pointing and squealing as the cars went by.
• He's an open mouth kisser, and once he hears the word "kiss" he opens wide and dive bombs your face...
• He plays with his hair when he's sleepy. Since he has so little hair, he pretty much just pinches little pieces.
• He still uses a pacifier for sleeping. I know this has to end someday...
  
• He knows what a fish says. However, he learned this from the stuffed blowfish hanging in our garage (that's a story for another time). So if you ask him what a fishy says, he'll tell you and then point up at the ceiling because to him fish live in the sky...
• He knows what a cow says...except he says boo instead of moo. At least we've got the "oo" part down.
• He loves other people's hair, especially long hair. He likes to grab sections of my hair and let it run through his hands.
• He does not dance to music. I think we've trained him that it's our job to dance for him whenever music comes on. So whenever he hears music, he looks at the nearest person as if waiting for you to dance...
• He knows how to wave hi and bye to everyone now, so he's quite a hit when we go out.
• He's starting to dislike car rides... I'm hoping a new car seat and a new view will help him get over this before we drive to my parents' for Christmas...

I think I'll stop there... I can record the rest in his baby book.

At Dylan's birthday party (which was last weekend while my parents were in town), we had a Wall of Dylan, which included a picture collage for every month of his life thus far, which I'm going to share with the blogging world. Enjoy!

Birth Day

December

January

February

March

April

May

June

July

August

September

October

November

We're so happy we have Dylan as part of our family, and we can't wait to see what this next year brings.

Exactly one year ago...

I was 39 weeks pregnant.

I went to my weekly OB appointment. For some reason I decided to pack my car with my hospital bag and computer (I think it was the non-stop Braxton-Hicks contractions).

My appointment went as usual: no baby progress (1 cm, 0% effaced); high blood pressure; a spike in my glucose (admitting I had chocolate milk for breakfast)...

Then the doctor came in and said, "I don't feel comfortable letting you go another week... looks like we're going to have this baby today."

The rest of the day was a blur... driving (.2 miles) to the hospital, checking in, hours of Law & Order reruns in triage while "ripening" (oh what fun), lots of text messages and phone calls, notifying work I was officially gone for the next 4 months, my last meal...

And finally, 24 hours later, our lives changed forever.

But more on that tomorrow...

San Diego

For Halloween weekend, we escaped to San Diego to meet up with my mom, three of her sisters, and five of my cousins for a weekend adventure. We were scattered around the city (we were downtown, some were on Coronado, other were in Chula Vista) but we were still able to get in a lot of quality time with them.

We started with lunch on Coronado...


Then headed to the Del to wander along the beach...

{Dylan was amazed by the Del...}

Then headed to old town San Diego to visit the Mormon Battalion museum and dinner...

{Panning for gold...}

{Making bricks}

{Meeting cousin Tera}

The next day we spent some time at Balboa Park. Then Shane, Dylan, and I had dinner together in Little Italy, with a nice lesson in baby signs at Yogurtland (Dylan learned the meaning of "more" very quickly when chocolate yogurt was the incentive).

Sunday we headed back over to my aunt's house to hang out before we had to leave.

{Dylan LOVED cousin Heidi}

{Just in case you missed my Halloween post below...}

{Dylan enjoying a special treat from grandma--an organic lollipop}

Finally, it was time to say goodbye...

{I promise my head isn't 10 times the size of my mom's....but I liked this picture so I still posted it}

The trip was short, but we had a great time!

Halloween

Yes, I do realize that Halloween was two weeks ago, but I didn't want to forget how cute our little paper bag was...

Yes, Dylan was a paper bag...more specifically a Ladmo bag, but if you didn't grow up in Arizona and watch the Wallace and Ladmo show, you won't understand (I didn't until I went here and here). For his birthday, Shane got a Ladmo t-shirt so the family costume was set in motion...and we figured this was the year because we didn't think Dylan would want to be a paper bag once he was old enough to have a say in his costume. I dressed up as a very minor character named Jodie...everyone just thought I was a girl scout.

Here we are before a neighborhood Halloween party. Sadly, it was an adults-only party so Dylan just put on his costume for the picture.



The actual weekend of Halloween (when our church and family parties were), we were in San Diego... so we brought Dylan's costume along with it and let him wear it to my cousin's house on Sunday.



Did I mention I made this costume by hand?? Yeah, I know...a lot of you are super crafty and could whip this baby out in a couple hours, but this was a big accomplishment for me. And my mom was oh-so-impressed.

More on San Diego later...

Coming Soon...

I've been waiting for life to slow down so I could write a new post... Between the upcoming Primary program (did I mention I'm the second counselor and I'm in charge of it?), way too much work, and a very active little Dylan I'm not sure when that will be. For now, enjoy a photo update on our month so far:

{Click for larger}

And even a video of the little man and his version of crawling... I can't imagine it's the most comfortable way, but he can't seem to keep his knees under him so he prefers this method.

I promise I'll post more later...

Abandoned...

...at least that's how I worried Dylan would feel when Shane and I ran away on a parents-only getaway to San Francisco last weekend. I did know that he was going to be taken care of and loved by pretty much all of Shane's family so I knew it was silly to worry.

Shane was in San Francisco for a conference for work. I decided to join him on Friday afternoon and take a quick weekend vacation. Shane did a lot of research so we could use our vacation time to the fullest.

On Friday night, we headed over to Fisherman's Wharf to head out on a night tour of Alcatraz. As soon as we got out on the water, it was cold and windy (which was a nice change from the Phoenix weather)... I love old buildings--I love walking through them, hearing about the history of them, and trying to picture what life was like for the people that lived in/used them so this was right up my alley. For the night tour, they close off some of the sections open during the day, but open other sections and have special programs before you head back to shore. It was definitely creepier at night time, as you can see from some of the pictures.

{There were just a few hundred people with us on the tour...}

{Creepy Shane in a high-security cell}

{I wouldn't go farther than the opening of the isolation cell...I was afraid it'd close behind me...}

{The hospital wing was opened for the night tour... Conveniently, they only lighted each room with a single lantern. This is Shane in the operating room. Can we say creepy?}

We ended the night at Ghirardelli Square. Shane got a Coke float and I got a hot fudge sundae. I meant to take a picture before I ate my sundae, but I got a little excited and devoured it... I didn't remember the picture until it was all gone :)


The next day we set out on a whirlwind tour of San Francisco. We started over at the Golden Gate Bridge. At first I thought I was sad that it was so foggy, but in the end it produced some beautiful views.





Then we headed to Chinatown and were able to wander through the Moon Festival celebration, see lots and lots of meat for sale, and visit a fortune cookie 'factory.'



Then we waited an hour to ride a cable car... We had to get on at the start of the line because they would fill up there so there wasn't any room to jump on later. Luckily we rode it almost to the end of the line (and up many steep hills) to Lombard Street.




Then we stopped in Fisherman's Wharf for some clam chowder in a sourdough bread bowl. Very San Francisco... (In truth, Shane at clam chowder. I took one bite to be a good sport, but it's really not my thing. I had pizza made on sourdough crust.) Then we visited an arcade full of old games.



Then we headed back to the hotel to get ready for dinner at The Stinking Rose. I got the braised short rib... It was oh-so-delicious! (Although I still tasted garlic while brushing my teeth in the morning...)

On Sunday, we headed over to Golden Gate State Park to pass the morning. We stopped at the beach, the Dutch windmill, and the Japanese tea garden. It was misting all morning, but it was actually quite refreshing. The Japanese tea garden was beautiful, and Shane was in bamboo heaven! I think we could've spent a lot more time there just taking in the views...










Then we hopped off the bus at Haight Ashbury... We loved looking at the old Victorian houses, but other than that, we felt very out of place there...so we just walked the length of Haight and headed back go our hotel and then to the airport.



It was short, but it was an awesome getaway!

********

Oh, you want to know what happened to Dylan?

Dylan spent most of the weekend with the Mikos family. He quickly determined that Aunt Amy was the chief caregiving in the household and wanted her attention at all times. All three kids pitched in to help feed and play with him, and Uncle Chance took it upon himself to introduce new foods to Dylan's world (including cheetos).

{An old pic of the awesome cousins holding a tiny baby... Who is that baby??}

Amy blacked out the windows in the room Dylan was sleeping in, and he slept better for her than he does at home: until 8 AM (he wakes up around 6:30 at home) and 2.5 hour naps!

He was in bed at our house when we got home on Sunday night. Shane went to get him Monday morning and he was so excited... Then I peeked my head over the edge of the crib and he went CRAZY trying to get to me. He was very clingy the whole day, but I didn't mind one bit...