The Year in Review

In 2011...

...I took just over 13,000 photos.

...Little Man travelled over 42,000 miles and visited two different states.

...Little Man put on around 12 pounds and grew about 8 inches.

...His mother put on about the same amount of weight, but did not grow any inches.

...He has gone from laying flat on his back to rolling to crawling to pulling up to walking to running to limping as we try to get him accustomed to walking again without his cast.

...The Georgia Bulldogs, Little Man's favorite team, scored a total of 417 points and scored 51 touchdowns.

...The Harry Potter movies ended, grossing a total of $7,000,000,000+. It will be 2016 before Little man gets to read any of the books. I'm already anticipating that day with excitement.

...Little Man moved, lost an uncle, and made new friends.

...He still does not like carrots.

2011 has been a good year. There has been sadness, frustration and tears. But there has also been happiness, smiles, and baby kisses. And it's very, very hard to feel sad, frustrated or cry when you're getting baby kisses.

Where will life find me 365 days from now? I stopped trying to predict my future long ago. I don't know specifics--I'm not even trying to make any guesses. But as long as I have my family, kisses from my boy and my husband too, I know I'll be happy.

Some Assembly Required

There is a certain happiness Christmas brings you when you're a parent.

Maybe you find it watching your child mesmerized by the lights and decoratins that adorn the houses this time of year.

Maybe it's when you light your family tree for the first time, and your baby claps his hands in delight and sucks in an excited breath.

Maybe you find it in shopping for your Little One, picking out things you know he'll be excited about opening and playing with throughout the year.

Perhaps it's snuggled up on the couch in the evening, all of you squished together, watching a holiday movie or listening to holiday music.

Or maybe you find it in the three and a half hours it takes you to assemble the train table that, from the moment he sees it Christmas morning, will keep your kid busy from sun up to sun down.

Because famililes are like the best presents--the train table, the bicycle, the complicated hot wheels track. It takes a long time to put them together. They don't come prepackaged or all set up. A good life with your family requires some assembly. Sometimes there is grumbling, but the end result is something fantastic. And sometimes pieces break, but there's usually a repair kit. And if there's not, a creative mind can find a fix for almost anything.

Merry Christmas from our family to yours! May your holiday be happily ever after.

With Sprinkles on Top

There is nothing that will bring joy to a one-year-old's face more quickly than being offered a plate full of cookies, a big blob of icing, and his very own container of holiday sprinkles.

After a few suspicious glances at me ("Am I really allowed to do this, Mama? It looks like it might be messy!") and a couple of test-shakes of his sprinkle container, Little Man made short work of his cookies. The real fun, it seems, is not decorating the cookies themselves so much as watching the red and green sprinkles pour out of the container on to the counter, where you can then make interesting designs using your fingers.

And we didn't keep the fun all to ourselves. There wasn't just Little Man sitting at the island, alone is his sprinkle mania. It was a sugar filled holiday play date. There was 2-year-old Miss B right alongside him, although she did focus a little more on decorating the actual cookie and less on decorating the kitchen.

My girlfriend and I were pleasantly surprised, once the kids got bored decorating their creations, how little of a mess they made. Sure, when I took Little Man's diaper off an hour later sprinkles fell out of it, and there is a spot on his leg that is dyed green from where he was sitting on them. But the overall result?

Positively yummy.

A Cast for Christmas

Looks like this will be sticking around until after the holidays.

At least he's color coordinated!

Dear Santa

Dear Santa,
A lot has changed since the last time I wrote to you. I'll be a year and a half old next month. I've put on about 12 pounds since last Christmas, and I wear clothes for 3 and 4 year olds. This time last year I could hardly sit up, and now I'm running all over the place (or at least I will be when I get my cast off).

I live in a new house, with lots of room and cows in the back yard. I know you couldn't leave me a reindeer last year, but we have way more space now--so I wouldn't complain if I found one hanging out with the livestock on Christmas morning. If Mommy asks, I'll just tell her that one cow got a tree branch on her head and then distract her. I'll leave carrots for the reindeer under the tree. They must get really hungry and I still don't like carrots, so I'll leave them all we have.

I'll leave you coke and cookies, too. I just had my very first oreo and I looooved it. Mommy didn't think I would but I proved her wrong! I ate it all up and I was a big mess and it took Mommy three washes to get my shirt clean. She didn't mind though, she's always doing laundry so I think she must like it a lot. I like little sips of coke, too, especially out of Mommy's straw when she's not looking. I'm stealthy like Daddy.

I've been super good this year. I always eat all my green veggies and I don't wake up at night nearly as much as I used to. Sometimes I wake Mommy and Daddy up at night these days, but if I don't, when else will I get to see the stars?

I'm working on learning to pick up my toys and put my books away when I'm through with them. I especially like to put my books back on the shelf and I'm very particluar about where they go. I'm not usually a messy boy (the oreo was a special occasion). In fact, if anything gets on my hands during dinner time I hold them up in the air and tell Mommy that they're dirty (using my loud voice) until she wipes them off.

I have lots of fun toys--I especially love my cars and trains, and books about them. I have this really great book and I know where all the trucks are in it! It must be Daddy's favorite book too, because he's always asking me to show him where the dump truck and the dune buggy are. I'm helping him learn all the names.

I like music too, and I dance all the time. I love to conduct the music with my hands. I know I would love to play music on Mommy's iPod, if I could just get my hands on it. Her reflexes have gotten way better since I came along.

I hope you have a Merry Christmas Santa, and a good vacation when the season is over. I'll write to you again next year and give you the scoop on whats new. Oh, and I'll give the cows a heads up that they might be getting a new friend (wink wink).

Love and babykisses,
Little Man

Ways to Keep a Toddler with a Broken Leg Busy

This week has been a lesson in extreme parenting. Today, I share with you my ways to keep a toddler with a broken leg busy:

1. Books. Lots and lots and lots of books.

2. A visit to the car dealership, to wander around the rows of cars from the comfort of a stroller while exclaiming and pointing in excitement.

3. Two dozen or so rides up and down in the mall elevator.

4. Also at the mall: the carousel. It was worth every penny of the $2 ticket to hear Little Man yell "up up up!" every time his horse started to rise.

5. Storytime, at every local library and bookstore I could find.

6. Homemade tracks and ramps for the growing collection of matchbox cars and transformers. Seriously, I think they're breeding while we're alseep.

7. TV. Go ahead and judge me, but during this week of trying to keep our kid entertained nonstop, Husband and I need the occasional break. And that's just what Mickey Mouse does for half an hour. Plus, Little Man is sooo cute when he does the Hot Dog Dance.

8. A spatula and a serving spoon. Who knew that these previously forbidden objects would keep him busy the whole time I cooked dinner?

9. A bowl of bread chunks and a grown-up fork. Do not underestimate the power of sitting at the table and stabbing things with a utensil.

So far we haven't broken out any of the Christmas presents, although the allure of giving him something new to play with is very strong. But really, who needs presents when you can have a spatula?

Sticks and Stones May Break my Bones....

...And apparently, so can tripping over your own two feet.

Add to that little trip up 30 pounds of force landing on chubby little knees and what do you get? A proximal tibial fracture and a bright red cast that goes from toe to thigh.

Our Little Man is a pretty rough and tumble boy, so when he fell two days ago and cried the horrible hurt cry I've only heard a few times in his life, I knew it wasn't a boo boo that could be cured with cuddles and kisses.

Little Man is faring pretty well--he's in good spirits and figuring out how to crawl around with his cast on. He gets frustrated when he can't stand up, but we're keeping him surrounded by all his favorite toys on ground level.

The cast is also an excellent noisemaker. Not only does it make a satisfying scraping noise when dragged along the ground, but it is like a built in drum.

And so with a determined expression our Little Man manuevers around the house, rediscovering nooks and crannies on floor level he hasn't seen in a few months, because he's been too busy running past them. Did you know the chair rung makes an excellent train track? Or that underneath the bookcase is a perfect matchbox car tunnel?

Every cloud has a silver lining.

Director of Communications

At Little Man's 12 month check up, I proudly rattled off all the words he could say: mama, dada, ball, flower, uh-oh. The nurse stared at me a little blankly.

"We don't ask about language until 18 months," she said.

Well, we're at 16 months, and the list has grown longer. Little Man has added words like dog, up, apple, nana, bottle, woof, boobies (yes, you read that correctly) and scissors to his list.

But what really gets me is the non-verbal way Little Man communicates with us--and how much he's capable of understanding even if he can't say it.

When he wants something he doesn't have a word for, he'll lead one of us straight to what he wants and puts our hands on it. Sometimes this works out in his favor, like when he puts my hand on the doorknob of the pantry, looking for a snack. Then there are other times, like when he tries to cram a disc into the PS3 and waves at Husband to get his attention, that we acknowledge his effort but try to distract him with something more his speed.

He understands many directives. He'll bring things to people on request, knows where to go to wash his hands, where to put his dirty socks (he puts them in the dryer, but hey--he's got the right idea), he'll bring us books when we ask and go switch them out when we're done reading. He anticipates a good countdown of "one...two...three...", sending his matchbox cars shooting down their ramp or attacking us with hugs on three.

He's super at identifying things in books: apples, bananas, dogs, ducks, pumpkins. He can find all his favorite trucks in his truck books on request: dump truck, excavator, big rig, dune buggy (comeplete with a "rumble rumble" tushie wiggle).

He's got body parts covered: hair, eyes, ears, nose, mouth, fingers, toes and bellybutton. He'll happily identify them on himself or you, honking your nose and yanking up a shirt to gleefully poke a finger in your bellybutton. He likes to compare bellybuttons of any two people standing close by, so beware.

He gives high fives and plays patty cake with me, anticipating the hand gestures. He gives me his toes when he wants to hear "This Little Piggy Went to Market", and moves my fingers up and down his leg in a request for "The Itsy Bitsy Spider".

And--the most recent and possibly my favorite verbal skill--when you ask him to sing a song, he rocks back and forth and sings "row row row boat", then waits for you to sing the rest.

I worried a few months back that I didn't teach Little Man baby signs, and that he would have a hard time letting me know what he wanted. My worrying was obviously pointless, because he has communication down pat.