Jacob's various birthday soirees and dedicated birthday update

Jacob's reaction to daylight savings time has been completely backwards and beyond brutal. Prior to DST, he woke up around 7. Since DST, he has been waking up at 5:30. Who does that???  On top of that, he is still waking up every 2-3 hours all night long.

If I had written this post on time it would have the sort of energy one has after being permitted to wake naturally for 3 nights in a row. I probably would have been bubbling over with enthusiasm, certain that those 3 miraculous nights were a harbinger of many more to come, and that this would be the year that we phased out sleep deprivation. He slept through the night 3 nights in a row!! It was a freaking miracle, and I was feeling better than badass as a result.

Alas, those stars have not aligned since then, and I am worse off as a result of them because those 3 nights in which I experienced full sleep cycles and woke naturally were enough to start to normalize my body, making it that much more painful when Jacob resumed every 1 to 3 hours. Fortunately, he's no longer awake and screaming for hours at a time during these wakings. Usually he's asleep again after a short snuggle, so I'm assuming it's some sort of separation anxiety which I read peaks around this age.

So, sleeping leaves a lot to desire, but he's otherwise a happy, healthy baby who still smiles constantly and has an infectious laugh. He's crazy curious and will bulldoze anything in his way to get to an object of interest. After nursing in the morning, he climbs over my face, dropping a knee into my neck if it happens to be in the way, and makes his way to my nightstand where he first picks up the monitor and, after inspecting it, drops it on the floor. The books are next, and then I pull him off my head and plop him on the floor just before he grabs the picture and lamp.

This tendency he has to bulldoze anything in his path when he sees something of interest makes picnics incredibly stressful. I spend the entire time shuffling the food around in an effort to keep him from crawling through it, but inevitably he crawls through something, smashing his knee down on someone's food and dragging it under him as he makes his way for someone else's plate.

On the bright side, he's eating less sand and sidewalk chalk these days, but it hasn't been that long since he shoveled dirt into his mouth. He also managed to pop a fistful of wet cat food into his mouth the other day before I yoked him up, and since he immediately locked his jaws, picking it out  was no easy task. 

In true family fashion, we celebrated his birthday on multiple occasions and managed to drag it out for most of the month. On the weekend before his first birthday, Hannah and I made Jacob blueberry muffins, and my mom and brother and his kids descended upon the house in a flurry of fun and chaos, the good kind that comes about when four kids under 5 end up in one row home. Zoey and Amy showed up in time for lunch and cupcakes and chaos too.

Jacob sat on dad's lap wearing the family birthday headdress and staring curiously at the fire while we sang to him.

 

Chip's present was (and still is) a HUGE hit. Jacob is totally obsessed with computers and constantly trying to bang on my keys the way I guess it looks like I do. This little LeapFrog computer is my go-to when I need him to just sit still.

Amy and Zoey got him That's Not My Dinosaur, a textured book that he reads daily, and this really neat plastic ball that changes back and forth from green to blue every time you throw it.

Grammy got him a Rody, a really soft stuffed tiger to snuggle, and a lift-the-flap book.

 

His present from Grannah and Granpah arrived in the mail a few days later, but since he opened it over video chat, I forgot to take pictures. They got a him some really fun cars, a stuffed dog, and a lift-the-flap book with farm animals.

Also, my aunts both sent cards stuffed with $20, which became the first two bills deposited into his piggy bank. Hannah has quite a stash of twenties at this point since that's where she always puts her birthday money too.

A couple weeks later, my dad and Sondra came down for an egg hunt and brought Jacob's birthday present: Elefun Busy Ball Poppper. It was a big hit.

Baby picture time!! From left to right, Eric, me, and Hannah after 1 year in this great world.  I think Jacob looks the most like his sister, except for his lighter coloring.

At his 12-month appointment he weighed 22 pounds and 6 ounces which dropped him down into the very average 66th percentile. The little giant who came into this world in the 99th percentile at 10 1/2 pounds is letting his peers catch up now. He is still in the 87th percentile for length (31 inches), which makes him a beanpole, just like his sister. I think she was usually 80th for length and something like 20th for weight. And his head, which seems like a totally arbitrary and pointless measurement to me, is 48 cm (92nd percentile).

We are all completely smitten with this baby brother and looking forward to more fun-filled days and (hopefully) more sleep-filled nights.