13 months

The boys are 13 months old!

Jakob

Jakob is an official walker.  It really only took a couple of weeks for Jakob to go from taking a few hesitant steps to walking unassisted all over the place.  He is so proud of himself too.  He spends so much time just walking from one wall to the other wall all the while laughing and giggling.  It might be a new walker "thing" but Jakob always walks with his hands above his head.  So it is extra cute.  I love when he gets a bit off balance and starts heading in an unintended direction.  He always laughs as if to say, "I meant to go here all along."  Jakob is also the first of the boys to be displaying some toddler temper tantrums.  Obviously the boys are being forced to learn to share toys from a very young age.  Jakob is typically a very calm toddler.  Alex is actually really bad about stealing Jakob's toys but 9 times out of 10 Jakob will just turn around and start playing with another toy.  It doesn't bother Jakob.  But there are rare moments when Jakob becomes the bully and then gets really, really mad when the situation does not go in his favor.  He has perfected the kicking and screaming on the floor.  But typically as long as Kara or I don't address the tantrum he realizes within seconds that we are ignoring the behavior and he typically moves onto something else.  I think Jakob's favorite toy at the moment are the mega-blocks.  He is starting to get really good at snapping the pieces together.  But he also loves to take apart things we have built.  He will take each piece off and put it back in the container.  This could go on for 5 minutes.  He will even go around the room to make certain all the pieces have been collected.  And then he will walk over to the tub and proceed to dump them all out again.  It's too cute.  Jakob is really good at stacking objects too.

Alex

Alex is really good a cruising around any object.  He has also taken a few hesitant baby steps but is not really walking without assistance at the moment.  Alex has however perfected standing alone.  This is actually not something that Jakob did before learning to walk.  I really think that it will only be a matter of days before Alex starts to walk alone.  He watches his brother each day and he evens has a few bumps on his head from trying to walk just like Jakob.  He will figure it out soon.  I think Alex's favorite toys at the moment are any of the walker toys and his "hammer" set from IKEA.  Alex loves to take off across the room with his walker toys.  And even better is when he gets to run something (or someone) over with the toy.  This includes his brother Jakob.  He also likes it when we put on of his stuffed animals on the toy so he can give them a ride too.  We are looking in to getting the boys a little wagon to pull around.  Alex also loves the "hammer" toy we got from IKEA.  We just have to supervise this activity as often the hammer is used to whack Jakob on the head.  Yes.  We are fully aware that Alex has a bit of a violent side.  Because of Alex's love for this toy we just got him a xylophone toy.  I think he will love it.

Both boys are still not extremely vocal.  They will both say Mama and Dada and babble with each other but in terms of mimicking what we say to them it has not really happened yet.  I do swear that Alex was going "vroom" the other morning as he was pushing his cars around the playroom floor.  But I have not heard it since that time.  I'm also fairly certain I heard Jakob go "Meow" when Monroe came into the playroom the other day.

Both Jakob and Alex have finally figured out how to wave good-bye.  They go over to the window every morning to wave good-bye.  Have mentioned how hard it is to leave each day?  They also like to go to the window and wave to whatever person, bird, squirrel or worm might be outside.  They wave to everything.  We have also taught Jakob how to clap.  He gets so excited!

Food.  We are really working hard on introducing new finger foods to the boys.  It can be hit or miss.  Some of the current favorites are waffles (Alex's favorite), eggs, pancakes, cheese, oatmeal, hamburger (Jakob's favorite), banana, hot dog, bread, granola bars, puffs, mum-mum's, cheerios, and graham crackers.  They also get pureed prunes at each meal along with typically one puree.  They still like to be spoon fed.  And because we have a hard time getting enough vegetables in the boys without using one of the "squeeze pouch" foods we just continue to let them eat those a couple times a day.  The boys still get 4 bottles each day but we have officially moved to sippy cups.  I think we literally purchased 50 different sippy cups before we found a winner.  I introduce to you the Nuk Learner Cup.  The handle is removable so the boys can actually hold it like a bottle.  And it is shaped just like a bottle.  This is what our stubborn little men demanded in a sippy cup.  But it still has a sippy cup end and the liquid comes out of the cup much slower than in a bottle.  They boys get 16 oz of milk each day.  Alex is still in the transition process but we have him up to 8 oz of milk and 8 oz of formula.  We are also giving the boys sippy cups between meals with 3 oz water and 1 oz pear juice.  The boys were not drinking enough liquids and Alex is constantly battling constipation so the pediatrician reassured us that 4 oz of juice per day is not going to do any permanent harm.  And both boys refused to drink water.  So they are getting some juice.

 The boys still love to be outside.  Kara and I both take them on a 3 mile walk each day and it is a highlight of our day.  We love the exercise and the boys love to people (and car and animal) watch!  We try to get them outside everyday because we really want to have outdoor children.

The boys are both in 12 month clothes for the most part.  All 12 month shorts and pants are way too long on Alex so we have some reserve 6-9 month and 9 months shorts that we put him in on occasion.  Otherwise because all we have are 12 month summer clothes Alex typically looks like he is wearing man capri's.  My skinny little boy.

We are all just enjoying life at the moment.  The boys keep us super busy and even on the most chaotic of days I can 100% without a doubt say that I have never been so happy in life.

Mary