14 Months

The Stats:
Weight - 24 lbs 10 ozs. This actually "drops" him into the 60% for weight, a good sign since his mobility has taken off.
Height - 30.5 inches. Short. Welcome to the my world, kiddo. But not as short as his sisters (percentile-wise) so maybe there's hope for him yet.

Food:
LOVES! Despite the fact that he still has the strongest most sensitive gag reflex in the world he loves to eat and is happily exploring new textures quite well. Of course his favorites remain easy finger foods, probably just for the necessary caveman killing instinct. His seat is always a mess.

Communication:
What a noisy boy! He talks constantly - surely just trying to be heard over his sisters! His verbal words are Mama, Daddy, ball, bottle, up, cup, pop, Papa, open, outside, all-done, again, and I'm pretty sure "mine." He also signs a little bit, mostly "more," "again," and "eat." Aside from that he makes noise and mimics sounds all the time! He also loves to get LOUD!

Play:
Cars and Balls, of course! He's such a boy, climbing over anyone and everything to get to a ball or truck. He vrooms and throws with the best of the boys! He loves his music table and building/knocking down block towers. I love that he initiates games a lot, too. He will get my attention to play patty-cake or peek-a-boo, and loves us singing "Wheels on the Bus" which he signals with "open!" while opening his arms wide. He's quite happy to play independently, too; he'll pull his basket off the shelf and dig through looking for toys and books and play quite contentedly.

Sleep:
ugh. My worst sleeper. To be honest, we've spoiled him rotten with sleeping with us and never on a schedule, plus we've never really let him learn to settle himself. He now screams until he throws-up every time we put him in a crib and he fusses for milk in the middle of the night. We keep saying we have to fix this, but nobody is really eager to make this boy cry in the middle of the night. Just the touch of a hand settles him right down next to us and melts our hearts. Yikes. After reading several sleep books by "experts" and polling everyone I can think of, my conclusion is that we're doomed. And he knows it, too!

Temperament:
Happy Happy Boy! Playful, happy, silly! (well, as long as we're not talking about sleeping arrangements that is...) He is easy to please, loves to be around people, loves to be entertained or to chill by himself.

Mobility:
A fast crawler either on hands and knees or hands and feet. He doesn't seem to mind hard or scratchy surfaces which is reflected in his perpetually scraped-up knees and tops of feet. He has not been super eager to walk. Just in the past few weeks he is starting to use walking toys across the room, but mostly still with our prompting. He pulls himself to stand on everything, though, and cruises along anything. The pediatrician judged Joey's overall development to be in the 12-month range, which is pretty darn impressive given how much catch up he has had to do!

A Birthday Boy's Party

Wow did we celebrate! Wonderful family, friends and prayer buddies delighted us by their presence at Joey's first birthday party.

It was a beautiful day at a perfect location. Perhaps the best part was the open area and playground for all the KIDS!!! Actually, we had about 60 kids there. No wonder I didn't get any cake.

Speaking of cake, JOEY loved his piece! Maybe a little sticky at first, but once that taste of chocolate passed his lips, there was no turning back. Actually, I'm not sure in the end just how much of the cake did, indeed, pass his lips. I do believe the majority stuck to his cheeks; they are quite sizable obstacles, you see.

Joey is quite the spotlight-hog; he just adored all the attention from everyone! Watching the kids run around, flirting with anyone who picked him up, and eating everything offered made him a happy little birthday boy.

It was such a joy for us to be able to celebrate with so many wonderful people who have showered bushels of love and prayers on us in the past year, especially in that first 6 months.

As for Joey, with all that happy socializing, I do believe we wore him out!

Crawling!

Well, it took him a while to decide to move, but once he did...

... there he goes!



Less than a week later, now, and he is movin' and groovin' like a pro. Faster and faster across the floor, chasing toys, delighting his sisters, challenging his parents.

Of course, movement also coincided with his ability to put small things into his mouth. We are getting busier by the second!

Turning a Corner?

Well it seems that Joey has not given up all of his antics - he still likes to keep up guessing, even when it comes to silly little matters!


I wrote about his stubborn refusal to eat, and lo-and-behold he decides to learn to chew! Thanks to those little "puff" snacks for babies, Joey learned how to have something in his mouth without gagging. Thanks to getting the chewing motion down, he is now enjoying eating foods with a little more proficiency. He is still mastering the baby-mush, but I'm thrilled that he's made some progress at all. Oh, and he loves our homemade applesauce, of course. :) We say "bite" and his little baby-bird mouth opens right up!

This, of course, is not applesauce.

His gross motor skills are lagging a little bit, and for a while I was really enjoying the Baby who was content to sit still and play! After a while, though, we started talking about whether or not we should have him reevaluated for therapy. (He qualifies for PT and OT based on his complex diagnosis alone, and we are free to pursue it any time until he turns 3.) All of a sudden a little switch turned and he is slowly opening his eyes to the possibility of motion. He turns himself on his belly all around, especially in the pursuit of someone or something. He is trying really hard to pull himself up, and gets really quite excited when we offer him a little help to do so. Just today he stood holding on to my knees without any other support!

His best source of motion is on his bottom - his wiggle/scooting abilities are growing rapidly. I will find him several feet away and facing a different direction than when I walked away just a few minutes before. The interest is there, the motivation is growing, now we're just waiting for the coordination to come through.
He loves clapping his hands, and plays patty-cake when Bella starts singing it to him. He laughs and smiles and blows raspberries, and you have never heard or seen anything more beautiful.