13 Months!

Below are some milestones and happenings of Patrick and Payden around the 13 month mark.

Also, don't miss the milestone for me too!

Patrick

• Recovering from his first ever ear infection. Let me tell you, not a fun one for parents. About 1 week of sleepless nights, we originally thought it was teeth but when a fever came on day 5 and stayed, we thought we'd better have it checked out. Saturday, he was diagnosed with an ear infection. The next night (Saturday) was by far the worst and his fever was 103.8 which was so high. I'm so glad I took him in the day before because I know for sure we'd be in the ER. Last night was our first night of true sleep in a week! Thank goodness for antibiotics!
• becoming lightening fast crawling.
  
• absolutely LOVES any kind of door to open and close. The front door outside is by far his favorite and you can't open and close it without him making a beeline for it and crying when it shuts.
  
• becoming a very good eater and will eat just about everything (except medicine of course).
• Shows that he will be the leader of him and his brother in that everything Patrick does, Payden has to now follow whether into the kitchen or bathroom.
  
• Discovered last week that the lid of the toilet comes up and it's awfully fun to drop bath toys in the water. Thank goodness I cleaned the toilet the same day!
  
• Getting very good standing for extended periods but has yet to "pull himself to stand."
  

Payden

• Also a lightening fast crawler, I'm amazed how quick he can get to where he wants to go.
• absolutely LOVES books and will just sit and look at books, one by one, out of his box of books.
  
• Discovered the stairs yesterday. I was sitting on the couch and looked up to see where he went and he was sitting on the 2nd stair, quite proud of himself. I used to be able to run upstairs real quick to do something but now, he starts to follow me. He is still unsteady but we can tell he LOVES the challenge!
  
• very quickly cruising along any surface. Just as Maddie thinks she is safe, tucked in a corner of the couch, Payden come walking down the couch to pounce. We're working on "being gentle" and "pet softly."
  
• will take a step toward something in order to get to his activity table. I am working on bringing it out farther and farther so he'll have to take more steps. So far he's quick at side steps but not as well forward. I did get him to go 5 steps with his push toy.
  
• Saturday night, I sat down with him to play with his ball. I hadn't played with him for awhile with his ball and thought he'd just roll the ball back. Nope, he picked it up and threw it overhand to me. I was surprsed! Christian was outside with Maddie and I told him to take my place and see what Payden could do. They played "catch" for some time and it was priceless to watch!
  
• Unfortunately all this standing and coming down and standing again has presented quite the number of head bonks. Just as it seems the one is fading, another appears.

Me (Valerie)

• Saturday, Feb 19th, was the last time that I pumped. For me, this is quite the milestone for me. I pumped for an entire year and a couple weeks so that my boys would have breast milk for a year. As much as I wanted to produce enough so that they would never know the taste of formula, it was not to be but I'm okay with it. I'm so happy to be done and not tied to it any longer. I'm glad that I was able to quit gradually because it has made a world of difference.