Donovan's first Christmas

I cannot believe that my little guy is 11 months old now.  Wow!  And this past month has been a big one.  We went on vacation and Donovan had his first Christmas.  He didn’t really get the opening presents part much, but he did enjoy ripping (and eating) paper.  So there was that.  He also enjoyed his toys very much.  And Jocelyn’s toys.  And she enjoyed his toys.  Yes, it’s a double-edged sword having kids who are so close in age.  On one hand, they enjoy the same toys.  On the other, they fight over said toys.

His favorite toy had to be his soccer ball. It is a squishy ball, small enough for his stocking, and cost me $1 at Target.  It was a last-minute add.  Wouldn’t you know that it was the best dollar I spent?  He just adores it.  Holds it, chews on it, walks around with it, etc.  Just loves it.

Oh, you read that right… I said he walks around with it.  In that he walks.  And not just a few steps, spanning a few feet.  No, Donovan can actually walk.  He walks around the house.  He can go from room to room and back again without stumbling, falling, stopping, etc.  He still does the whole baby waddle /  toddle, but he is really quite competent.  He can almost stand up without pulling up on something.  He does fall down a lot – usually just onto his butt.  But sometimes he flips somehow and gets a bit more hurt than that.  But he is getting the hang of it.  And he is getting really good at chasing Jocelyn around and generally annoying her.  Baby brothers are SO annoying!

His vocabulary is also increasing.  In addition to Mama, Dada and Cat, he now says ball (ba, baw, bow… he tries lots of different ways), balloon (also ba, with a gesture toward the balloon) and bye bye (ba ba, with a wave).  I am pretty sure he tried saying Jocelyn and a few other things that are escaping me at the moment.  He ‘sings’ too.  We have these musical books, and when we play the sounds he sings ‘ah ah ah.’  He also makes a clicky, tsk sort of sound for when he is hungry.  He also claps a lot, and can give high fives.  And he is the smiliest little guy there ever was J. 

The past month, including our vacation, was sort of a rough go from a health standpoint, though.  First of all, Donovan got the flu!  It wasn’t his fault, I had it first… probably picked it up on the airplane back from Topeka.  He was on Tamiflu into the start of our vacation, and so was Jocelyn as a preventative. Which was awful.  Then he sprouted his 8^th tooth while we were on vacation.  Which meant that he used my nipples as a teething ring a few too many times, and I am still trying to recover from it.  Then he spiked a fever later on, but we started to treat it much earlier than you are supposed to in order to keep it under control (since Jocelyn had just gone through it and it spiked really high and was hard to control).  Now that we are back from vacation, he is super clingy and seems generally down.  I think he misses all the people, or maybe he is still just off.

But in more fun news, we did have an early first birthday party for him while we were there.  He was a champ and walked around / played with people for most of the time.  He ate his cupcake like a champ, and was not nearly as messy as I would have expected.  His cake was Elmo, but we did not let him have any since there is too much dairy, eggs, etc.  He passed out for a nap right about the end-time (which, of course, nobody left at, so we didn’t get to enjoy his nap at all!).  We are also in the throes of planning his real first birthday party, which is coming up quickly, which is crazy. 

I can’t believe that his first year is almost up.  My big boy!