Our Mr. Luke is one! The first year is such a blur, and we can’t believe we have another toddler in the house.
He’s a cuddler and we love it. He has a slight preference for mom at the moment, but there are many people that get Luke snuggles. When he’s playing he’ll pause for a bit and crawl over and lay his head on our shoulders. He loves blankets and will lay down and relax on any blanket left on the floor. In the morning when I get him out of his crib he hands me his blankie first so he knows it will come with him.
Luke knows what he wants. He likes to yell and point when he sees something of interest, which seems to be everything. He’s intensely curious and wants to hold and play with most things in the house. He’s especially interested in phones and remotes and does not appreciate when we won’t hand them over.
It’s hard to tell him no, because most of the time his reaction to our sternness is to laugh. He’s definitely more “adventurous” than Clara was at a year, and seems to find the one thing in the room he’s not supposed to touch. He also loves to be chased! If we are sitting in a room he’ll look over and yell like he’s saying “chase me!” and take off crawling like a shot. He looks back and giggles like a maniac.
He’s also already adamant about doing things himself. He likes to try and take caps on and off and insists on a spoon or fork to try and eat his dinner with. We think toddlerhood could be very interesting with this guy.
He loves to watch what Clara is doing, and continues to torture her by following her around and getting into whatever she is playing with. He especially likes to take apart her lego creations seconds after they are finished. She’s actually become more patient with him and has learned some strategies to try and escape “Luke-zilla”.
He’s a great sleeper and goes down for naps and bedtime really well. He sleeps in his sleep sack and when we hand him his paci and turn on his sound machine he knows it is time to sleep. We hope it continues! He’s also still a good eater and will try most things. His favorites are mandarin oranges, blueberries, spaghetti, toast with cream cheese and eggs.
He’s not walking yet, but is standing all the time and is a super fast crawler. When he is really trying to crawl fast he’ll put his head down like he’s trying to kick it to an extra gear. He’s getting braver every day about moving between furniture so we think he’ll be toddling around soon.
We swear he says “yeah” when we ask him questions and he does lots of babbling. It’s amazing what he can communicate with few real words. He loves to make funny noises with his tongue and thinks it's hilarious to imitate what people (especially Clara) are doing.
Other current likes:
- His bath. As soon as we approach the upstairs bathroom he gets excited and as soon as we turn on the bath water he’s climbing and trying to get in the tub. He is so happy to be in the water!
- Favorite toys include mega blocks because he can put them together by himself, towers to knock down and anything that makes noise.
- He’s starting to like to read books for a minute or two at a time and likes to imitate how we sound while we read.
Current dislikes:
- When someone else has a food or drink and he does not have some right NOW. When Clara has a sippy cup, he waits for her to put it down so he can race over and steal a drink before someone catches him.
- Putting his coat and shoes on. We work up a sweat trying to get him ready to get out of the house.
We love this age and now that we’ve survived babyhood we kind of wish we could freeze Luke at this age. With your second, you know there are toddler challenges ahead. :) Right now we are trying to soak up our happy guy and everything he is learning.
