Parker is 1 year old!!

What a busy time this past month has been for my little Parker! He survived the confusion of packing and moving all of our belongings out of our Colorado house, and he celebrated his first birthday at his nanny and papa's house in Oklahoma, which is where we are until we venture down to Texas tomorrow.



I packed away his calendar that I mark all of the exciting "milestones" on, so I'm relying on my memory for this post (which means I'll forget to write something really important)!

He began walking with a push toy that he has. I'm sure most of my friends and family saw that on youtube. Then, last Thursday, he took his first steps! Granted, life has been a little hectic and fast paced for Parker this past week, so I haven't really seen him try to do that very often. He does like it when someone holds his hands so he can practice walking.





He loves watching his Baby Einstein videos. Sometimes they will hold his attention for twenty minutes, other times he will only tolerate them for thirty seconds. He loves watching the puppets on that show, and of course he loves anything that has a dog on it!

He has finally began to take an actual interest in books. Before, whenever I would read to him, he would just look away or try to eat the pages. Now he actually seems to look at what I'm reading to him. I do have to use books that have very simple pictures and not a long story line.


He began blowing kisses. Although he doesn't actually blow them. He just covers his mouth, and as he takes his hand off he tries to say, "Muah" but it just comes out as, "Ahh!" It's precious!

He is fascinated by other kids. I had several friends who either baby sat or came over with their baby so I could get some packing done these past two weeks. He is very affectionate with them and loves to give them kisses. Unfortunately, Parker's kisses quickly turn into bites. That's something I'm trying to work with on him, although I'm not sure how to break his habit at this age, especially when he thinks he is being sweet.



As far as food goes, I know I need to be more adventurous on allowing him to try more "table" food, but things were just so hectic that I relied on the tried and true 2nd and 3rd stage baby foods. I think once we are more settled into a new routine in Texas I'll start letting him have more fun exploring new foods. He does love feeding himself and his favorite food is still Cheerios! I'm pretty sure he can spot a bright yellow Cheerio box a mile away!



His new favorite activity was climbing up the stairs. He loved it so much that if I started going up the stairs with him in my arms, he would practically leap out of my arms so he could climb up them himself. What really cracked me up was that he knew what the phrase, "wanna go upstairs?" meant. If I said that, he would immediately begin to speed crawl to where the stairs were so he could have a go at it!

I can now tell him to say, "Hi" or, "Bye" to someone, and he will wave at them and say "I", without me having to wave. I was pretty impressed by that!

We are currently staying at my mother-in-law's house, and while we are here Parker has been having a lot of fun with this partiular toy:





Unfortunately, a few days before the big moving day Parker began showing the symptoms of the same illness he had a few months ago. I had already scheduled to have his one year well-baby doctor appointment for Friday since we would be in Oklahoma on his birthday. It started out as a runny nose on Tuesday, then vomiting on Thursday, and finally diarrhea on Friday. The doctor did prescribe him an antibiotic since we would be driving an eight hour trip the next day and warned me that the meds might make his diarrhea worse. (Greeeaaattt, was my initial thought) Parker and I would be driving in the truck while Greg drove the U-Haul so I was not looking forward to the drive. Luckily, Parker was a little champ on the trip. He didn't have diarrhea and he only cried for a total of maybe ten minutes during the entire drive! Tomorrow I have a three hour drive ahead of me so hopefully I will continue to luck out with a happy baby! Unfortunately, he did begin running a fever on his birthday and it has not broke today, so I'm hoping it's just a reaction to his meds or that it's just a reaction from all the stress and running around we've been doing. I'm trying to take it easy today for his sake.

I am 1 year old today!!! On Friday I weighed 19 pounds 9 ounces and was 28 1/2" long.