Cole's Moving On Up

It was a big week for Cole - in addition to his 1st birthday, he transitioned from the infant room to the first toddler room at daycare!

The transition began on Monday for both him and another boy who just had his first birthday. Each day, they visited the toddler room, staying longer each day, until yesterday, which was their first full day in that room.  With the transition means just one nap around 11:30 and no bottles, so I was a little nervous how it would go, considering he's not fully transitioned off the bottle, and he's been taking two naps per day.

We received great reports each day though, and he seems to really like the new class. The first day, his favorite teacher from the infant room told me she'd gone in to check on him and he was having so much that he didn't even notice her.  Other reports from the week included, "He loved crawling around and playing with stuffed animals", "Cole had a great time in the gym today. He was crawling around trying to catch and push balls with his friends.", "Great job with markers today, I was surprised how comfortable Cole was with them.", and "Cole had fun with puppets today."

Thursday and Friday were the first days he had lunch and napped in the new class, and they said he went to sleep easily, slept over two hours and was one of the last to wake up.  He loved lunch yesterday, eating all of his pizza and green beans.

With the new nap schedule, he's been ready for bed a little earlier each night, but other than that, he's seems to be handling all these changes well.  He was obviously very busy, and enjoyed new activities and playing with new friends.  I'm so glad it's gone so smoothly!

In the month leading up to their transition into the next class, the infant room deems the transitioning kiddos "The Bosses".  

Happy 1st Birthday, Cole!

Happy 1st birthday to our "baby", Cole!  It's hard to believe it's been a year since my crazy quick labor, but it has and we couldn't imagine life without Cole.  He brings so much laughter and fun to our house, as well as loudness, but we wouldn't have it any other way.

While Cole has idolized J since day 1, every week that passes brings them closer together and interacting more and more.  It melts my heart every time...it's just amazing.  I can't wait to see them play more together in the next year, especially as Cole starts walking and talking.

Cole had a great day - it started off with him sleeping past his normal 6:10 or 6:15 wake-up. We actually had to wake him at 6:30 to get ready.  And because it's Tuesday, he and Jackson were able to watch the garbage man do his thing, which came with lots of waving, pointing and clapping from Cole.  We sang him Happy Birthday, and he enjoyed a good breakfast before heading to school.  I picked the boys up early for Cole's 1-year check-up, where he was deemed "perfect", before we headed off to Red Robin for his birthday dinner (J's choice).

After a good dinner of tidbits form all of us, we headed home for birthday calls with the grandparents, opening a few presents - a play cell phone and a ride on airplane (which boy boys love) - and cake and ice cream.  It was my night for doing Cole's bedtime and after a few quick books and a bottle, he was all tuckered out, so I was able to take advantage of some extra sleepy snuggles.

Here are his 1-year stats:

• Weight: 23 lbs, 3 oz. (75-90%)
• Height: 31" (90%)
• Head: 18.3" (50-75%)
• His iron levels came back normal and he handled his three big shots like a champ with just a few tears.

And a few things about Coley at 1-year:

• Continues to babble and repeats some sounds - "dada" is his favorite (and while he uses it frequently, he does seem to use it appropriately at times, like when it seems like he's looking for Corey), "mama", "meow", "woof", and what I swear sounds like "all done" when he's all done eating (though I know it's highly likely it's just a coincidence).
• Continues to point at everything and babbles as he does it, as if to ask "what's that?!"
• Pulls up to a stand against anything and everything, and does it so quickly
• Scoots even faster
• Continues to furniture surf and attempt steps between furniture and between us
• Claps, waves, high 5s, and blows kisses
• Shares - hands you something, accepts it back and repeats
• Shakes his head "no" at appropriate times (no more food, etc.)
• Seems to understand "no" - sometimes he doesn't listen, but he always pauses and looks at you as he considers his next move.  And there have been a few times that he's tried to open a cupboard I didn't want him to so I told him "no no" and then he shut it.  After a minute, he tried again, and we repeated the cycle successfully.
• We've started transitioning over to milk and hope to be full transitioned by the end of the week.  Once that's complete, we'll start to wean off the bottle, and only use sippy cups.
• Loves stuffed animals. He has a shelf in his room with lots of them, and during most feedings, he has to take a break and wants us to take him over to check them out, often grabbing one to bring back to the chair. Once he grabs one, he gives it a big hug.  Cutest. Thing. Ever.
• After a day or two of not loving shoes the first few times we put them on, he's become a shoe lover, like everyone else in the family.  He often scoots over to them, grabs a pair and brings them over to one of us to put them on him.

Oh how I love this kiddo!

Loads of (1st) Birthday Fun

With Cole's love of anything loud, hammering, and play tool sets, it seemed appropriate to have a construction themed first birthday party.  It was such a fun theme to plan around, and I'm really happy with how everything turned out.

The party went great and all the kiddos got along well.  There were no tears, except for a brief period when Jackson took Cole's ball popper from him.  The cake smash started out a bit slow, Cole was definitely into it by the end, with the help of Jackson.  And he was completely spoiled with super fun gifts from all the friends and family in attendance.

I still can't quite believe our baby will turn one in two days. I'm not sure where the year went, but I do know that we couldn't imagine life without him, and that we all just love him to pieces.

The party was a success and was "loads of fun" (which is the phrase I used on the party favor tags).



Party favors for the kiddos - constructions hats and buckets that contained a few construction vehicles, bubbles in construction-themed containers, and a few tools.

I found a huge roll of Caution tape on Amazon, and loved finding ways to use it as a decoration.

He LOVES balloons...but I guess what kid doesn't??

It was fun getting creative with the extra construction vehicles on hand.

I borrowed the sign idea from Etsy, and had such fun coming up with things to include in each section.

 

Costco cake for all the guests in the background, and a giant homemade cupcake for Cole to smash.  Jackson helped me make the cake, using a giant cupcake pan that I rarely have a good excuse to use...until his party!

A pile of dirt crushed up Oreos and a few construction vehicles were the perfect cake toppers.

J did the honors and blew out the candle for Cole...only took him two tries.

"Hmm...what is this??"

Since it was off to a slow start, we told Jackson to help Cole take a bite...

"Okay this isn't so bad..."

"Actually, it's really kind of fun!"

The start of a nice mess

And this is about when we called it a wrap.

Swimming & Grampa Curtis

While Cole dabbled in the water a few times in Hawaii and briefly in Yakima over the summer, he had his first official swimming lesson over the weekend.  We wanted to start him early to help avoid the fear over the water that J experienced as a toddler, and we were able to sign up for two back-to-back classes through Arena Sports so that both boys could enjoy a session this winter.

The water was a bit cold, but after Cole acclimated, he just loved splashing around...that's one of his favorite things to do in the bath, so I can only imagine that he thought the pool was just a HUGE bath. He also loved when the instructor brought out the plastic balls to play with.  They wanted to keep the first class really low key, just to get the kiddos used to the water, so we're looking forward to learning some new tricks in the coming weeks.

And Jackson did a great job in his lesson, especially enjoying kicking and blowing bubbles.  So great to see him so comfortable in the water.

And in other fun news, Grampa Curtis was in town last week for the first time since right after Cole was born, so we were all excited to see him and catch up.  And I know he enjoyed his time with the boys, and seeing first hand how much Cole had grown and changed in his first year.  He was even able to see the boys in their swimming lessons. 

Cole's First Haircut

Last weekend, Cole had his first official haircut! (I say official, because there was a minor trim at home in the bath a few months back, when his hair was starting to grow over his ears.)  Without any nearby kids' salon options, Jackson recently started going to Sports Clips near our house, and we decided to try it out for Cole as well.  It was a huge success!

He looked very relaxed waiting for his turn:

Once comfortable and situated on my lap in the chair (still too little to sit on his own in the adult chairs, and they don't have kids' chairs), he was super still (who knew that was possible?!) and just watched the whole thing in the mirror. We didn't hear a peep from either - also unusual!

Sports Clips is walk-in only and we lucked out with a stylist who spent 7 years at a kids' salon so she knew exactly what to do.  It all only took about 10 minutes to complete the cut, and while we avoided the use of a neck trimmer (I wasn't ready for him to look quite that grown up, and the stylist wanted to keep the whole experience positive and not introduce anything that may leave him feeling scared for next time), he definitely looks so much better, and like such a big boy: