Thirteen Months

(Oh the faces these two make.)  (And Caden's eyebrows.  The eyebrows!)

Eat.  Three meals a day (7 am, 11 am, 5 pm) and 1-2 snacks (3 pm and sometimes one in the am).  These two continue to eat pretty much the same as Tyson and I.  Caden in particular will eat anything and everything, and I haven't seen him turn away food unless he is full. Brooklyn is only slightly more particular.  I can tell more what her "favorites" are (cheese, blueberries, bananas,  eggs,  pasta, any kind of meat), and sometimes she has a vendetta against veggies for a  few days.  She otherwise eats just fine, and neither one could be described as "picky"!

Sleep.  Bedtime at 7 pm, sleep for about 11-12 hours.  Naps at 9 am and 1 pm, though starting to switch to one nap starting at noon.  Turning one has definitely helped these two with their sleep!  Brooklyn in particular is a champion sleeper, and regularly sleeps for a straight twelve hour stretch through the night.  Caden is more prone to waking once or twice, but usually settles down quickly, and will also sleep through the night.  They are getting much better at putting theselves back to sleep when they wake up-I've watched each of them on the baby monitor seemingly wide awake, sitting or standing up in their cribs, but the next time I check they are laying down, fast asleep.  They were taking two naps until this past week.  Caden seems to be more inclined to nap twice a day (it's about a 50/50 chance if he'll go down in the morning or not), but Brooklyn is definitely moving to one nap.  If Caden sleeps in the morning, I put her in her crib for some "quiet time", which she actually does really well with.  Four out of the past five days, though, both have gone down for a nap at noon and slept for a good 1.5-2 hours.

Play.  These two continue to be very active.  They bounce from one thing to the next and nothing holds their attention for long.  With the warmer weather their favorite thing is to be outside, and they love going bye-bye.  In fact, I have to refrain from saying "bye-bye" in front of them until right before we need to leave, or they immediately begin looking for their shoes and socks, and hand them to me to put on their feet, before crawling and pointing at the door.  They are RELENTLESS about going out the door once they are ready with their shoes and jackets on.  I made the mistake of saying "bye-bye" about ten minutes too soon the other day, so we just left early and drove around for a bit.  They like leaving the house in general, and it's actually really easy to take them to Target or the grocery store because they love looking at everything and seeing all the people.  We leave a couple of books in the car for them to look at while we drive, and they immediately grab for them, almost before they are even seated in their car seats.  It's interesting to see their little minds and memories working and latching onto routines.

Brooklyn is becoming much more vocal, and in the past week has been constantly babbling strings of syllables that sound almost like words...but not quite.  If you ask her what sound a cow makes she will happily say "Mmmmmmmm".  They don't otherwise say much for actual words yet, sometimes "mama" and "dada", and they will try to mimic words if they are in the right mood.

Caden continues to enjoy putting objects in containers, and taking them back out.  He's actually become quite the helper with laundry, and will sit on the floor handing me items from the laundry basket while I put them away.  He's fascinated with the shape-sorter and the mailbox on their toy "house", and takes things in and out of it all day long.

Both of them also enjoy rolling balls on our kitchen floor (one of the only hard surfaces in our apartment), and will also play "catch" by rolling or throwing a ball back and forth-they're pretty good at it, too!  They are also getting better at walking, and will walk across an entire room if encouraged.  Hopefully they figure this walking-on-their-own thing out very soon, since otherwise their preferred method of transportation is to be steered around the room while holding onto mine and Tyson's fingers.  This works okay (if somewhat exhausting and cutting off the circulation-ing) when Tyson is around, but less well when only one of us is home...

(Proof that Caden indeed has hair.)