Ryan -- 13 Months

Dear Ryan,

It's been a year and a month since you came into this world and delighted us with your presence. We have loved learning who you are and loving you. Last fall the 2 of us mostly stayed inside being together, staying warm. This fall we are outside more, enjoying the changing of the leaves, the colder weather, Halloween. There are lots of new things to engage and delight you.

This month you finally learned to sign Daddy, and you actually switch between using your forefinger and your thumb to sign it. However you do it, you sign Daddy many times a day; he seems to be your favorite person around. (He's just the right height to comfortably hold your hand as you nearly constantly walk around the house.) You started wobbly walking mid-month on your own, but then you had a bad fall where you landed on the back of your head and decided to hold off on that for awhile. Instead you hold our hands when walking, although you do practice standing sometimes. When you are not walking, sleeping, or playing, you can sometimes be found lying with your whole body and head on the floor, either to fully feel the surface that is under you or to take a little rest or both. Either way it's pretty cute.

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Your personality is definitely playful. You want to explore everything, but you are more interested in things (like the inside of the refrigerator, pots/pans, laundry) than toys, although you will play with those as well. What you are not interested in yet are books, which to me is a surprise -- Jake loved books early on. I do hope you will let me start reading to you soon, before you outgrow all the cute baby books!
No to books but yes to technology... you try so hard to leap off our laps to bang on the computer keyboards and you know how to push the 'home' button on the iPhones so that the picture comes up. You haven't figured out the slide yet, though.

13 months old and still only 2 teeth! Regardless, you love to eat, especially if you can feed yourself. You are already showing proficiency with a spoon which I'm grateful for since you are able to make full-scale self-feeding messes that often require a complete change of clothing despite the bib. In other ways you are tidy -- when you are finished with the mama milk, you will often then pull down my shirt for me. So cute.
And you know how to get our attention, whether it is for more food or something else. You already know how to bang on tables and other surfaces. You make us laugh with your smiles and funny faces.
Here's to more fun times head, little love.
Love, Mama