My poor baby boy I finally took him for his 1 year check up yesterday. I'd been putting it off because really what mom wants to watch their child scream and cry while they get held to a table and stuck with a bunch of needles? Not to mention the whining, fussiness and fever that usually follow all those nasty shots! Blake is a little trooper though. He did survive. I, however, left the Doctor's office defensive, pissed off, and frazzled as usual.
He had a 10:30 appointment, which we were 10 minutes early for and we didn't leave until 12:00!! That's way too long. Blake had to have blood drawn for the stupid lead test. I argued with the nurse that we don't have lead in our house, and he didn't need the test. She told me it's now mandatory. They pricked his finger and proceed to try to squeeze a whole lot of blood out of his little finger. It took several minutes, all of which he screamed and pulled away through. It would have been so much quicker to just take blood, and possible just as unpleasant.
Plus I had to listen to all the usual unasked for parenting advice from the Doctor: Only give him water before bedtime, no more bottle, let him cry through the night, take his Binky away, bite him back when he bites you.
OK so let me see if I have all this straight. I brought his Binky, which he usually never uses during the day except when he's going down for a nap, in order to give him something to help keep him quiet while he's screaming during his exam, but I should take it away and go ahead and let him scream. You are going to give him 3 major vaccines all of which cause a fever, but I should just ignore him tonight and let him cry himself back to sleep. Which he's going to do on an empty stomach because I don't want to worry about rotting his baby teeth that are going to be replaced in a couple of years anyway. Oh, and are these the same teeth that we are worried about becoming buck toothed because I let him have a bottle (only at night) as a source of familiar comfort so I can get him to sleep? And how is a bottle nipple different from a breast? I don't recall ever hearing don't breastfeed or they'll become buck toothed.
Of course all of this is running through my mind, and I just looked at the Doctor when he told me he bit his kids as a means of teaching them that biting hurts. Yes, I've heard of this tactic before. And if and when Blake decides to start biting in an aggressive or deliberate manner I'll consider a form of discipline that is appropriate. But I don't think Blake biting my neck while he is trying to frantically crawl over my shoulder to get away from the scary man in the white coat calls for me taking a bite out of him. Especially since he was already crying, and mostly trying to bite my shirt, and when I said, "No bite" he started crying even harder.
All of that said, Blake weighs 23 1/2 lbs. He is 30 inches tall and all of his measurements put him right at 50 percentile. So he's a healthy normal little boy.
Here he is after his appointment. I popped a bag of Kettle Corn, and let him have at it. If you look to the right he had parked his little train next to the coffee table, and used that to climb up on the table.
You can just see one of the bandages from his shots on his leg. Why do they have to use industrial strength bandages? I had to soak him in the tub and use baby oil just to get the bandages to start to loosen up.
Silly boy, he was crawling backwards onto the couch.
Today he's been running a fever all day, even with infant Tylenol in his system. He still wants to run around and play, but I can tell he's not totally feeling good. I fed him lunch thinking I'd try to put him down for a nap after he ate. I should have skipped the lunch and just straight to the nap. He started nodding off in the middle of his pasta.
Every day he adds new words and I can barely keep up so I wanted to write some of them down before I forget. I've heard: (some old) Mama Dada, brudders, kitty cat, doggie, juice, this, these, bu-bye, there it is (said as one word) (some new:) herow (hello), keys, trees, out, up, good, is it good, bad mama (that one's my fault I've had to stop talking to myself) row row, No, No go Daddy, and head. Vance and I are fairly sure he called me Lindsey the other day. We both heard him say it and just looked at each other like, did he just say what we think he said?
So he's a smart little pumkin' and all ears. Each day brings something new, watching him discover and learn is so much fun!
Sniff, sniff! What happened to my tiny baby boy? I can remember so clearly one year ago today when I was able to see you, touch you and hold you for the first time. I stared and stared at your tiny little clenched fists and your precious little feet, those same tiny feet that had been kicking me so hard for so long.
I can't help but compare. This morning when I woke up your not so tiny, but still little feet were still kicking me. This time they were kicking my head. And yes it was about 5:30 in the morning. I can't blame you. It's your 1st Birthday! Of course you are ready to start your day, even though it is still dark out and Mommy hasn't had coffee yet.
Up and ready to party.
We bought him a sandbox. I don't know if it was a great idea, but we had good intentions. My thinking was he loves dirt and rocks, maybe the sand will be a little cleaner for him to eat and play in. He actually doesn't love getting it all over his hands.
Birthday cakes, I baked them Vance decorated them. His pirate cake was german chocolate and the #1 was a yellow cake.
Party decorations, treasure map place mats and a hook.
He'd just woke up from a nap in this picture. I think he was a little surprised to find people in his house.
And this his shiner picture. I was so hoping his black eye would be gone before his Birthday. He had an encounter with the kitchen table leg a couple days ago, and really had a goose egg. It was almost gone yesterday and then he lost his balance and hit it again. Poor baby!
I helped blow out his candle. He so wanted to reach for the flame.
Shane blowing out his candles. It was his birthday too, as he kept reminding us.
I thought surely my dirt and rock eating boy would be all about eating and smashing his cake. But noooo he poked at it and suspiciously tasted it.
He finally got into eating just a little bit of cake off his fingers.
And then her rubbed frosting in his eye.
All done! 
He was super excited about all the presents and friends. He started passing out his gifts to everyone.
This lion from Bill and Tammy was a big hit. He wanted to play with it right away.
Then he wanted to take off with it.
Then he sat on it while he opened his other gifts.
The Black and Decker tool set from Mi and Pa is super neat. We ended up taking the plastic drill bit out of the drill because he wanted to run around the house carrying the drill with the bit shoved in his eye or forehead.
More presents, and still riding his lion.
And his "big" gift from Mama and Dad was the Alphabet train educational and fun!
End of a wonderful first Birthday. Blake was all wore out and ready for his night time routine with Dad. It took him awhile to wind down. Probably all the sugar and excitement.
I couldn't resist posting these day after pictures of Blake riding his Alphabet Train.
I like where he has his hand on his hip. He looks all professional and ready to go.
It was a nice Birthday party, and I think Blake had a good day. I missed not being able to celebrate it with family. But I am very thankful to our friends who came and made his party so special.
