Birthday Boy.

Dear Joe,

Happy, happy birthday to our handsome little guy! You are such a sweet, cuddly, funny boy with such personality. You are growing every day, though you seem so "petite" to us. You spend your days in size 4 diapers (5's at night) and size 12-18M clothes. You have 8 teeth, with very swollen gums showing us that several molars are on the way soon. Your speech has really taken off over the past 2 weeks or so. You are babbling constantly, with a few actual words thrown in there every so often. You are such an active guy! You move non-stop, climbing in/on/around/through whatever is in front of you. You just love to climb. Mommy caught you standing on the seat of your sister's tricycle just last week! When we can get you to stop moving, cuddling up with a book is a family favorite activity. Here are a few more of your favorites (and not-so-favorites) in this last month of your first year:

Favorites
Elmo - "Melmo", as you call him, is your new buddy! You just light up when he comes on TV or you see him in a book. We have started watching a lot more Sesame Street, as your sister often suggests it because she knows you like it.
Being mischievous - You are already a button-pusher, and you think it's so funny! You are constantly testing the waters around here, doing things you know you're not supposed to do (yes, you're smart enough to know already) and looking back with a smirk to see if we've noticed. If you see us coming towards you to stop whatever it is you're doing, you start doing it faster. Hear us coming to get you off the stairs? You climb faster, giggling the whole way up. See us coming to get you away from the bathroom? You get in there as fast as you can with a giant smile on your face.
The garbage can - Why do you adore the trash can so much? You think it's so fun to pull trash out of the can and to put your toys in it. To you, there are lots of things that look fun and tasty in there. Like the Montgomery Inn rib bones that Daddy threw away after lunch one day and you proceeded to pull out and gnaw on before Mommy caught you. Buddy, that's a pretty gross habit!
Fruit - Your diet is currently about 60% fruits & veggies, 25% dairy, & 15% meat and grains. Your preference certainly seems to be fruit! You almost always eat your fruit before the rest of your food. Your top 3 faves include strawberries, watermelon, & mandarin oranges, with several others close behind.
Forks - You will eat almost anything off of a fork! If we are having trouble getting you to finish your meal, all we have to do is give you a fork. You understand how to use it, you just don't quite have the motor skills to do it yourself. If we help you stab the food with it, you think it's so fun to put it in your mouth!

Not-so-favorites
The stroller - If the stroller isn't moving, you're trying to climb out of it! You will only tolerate being in the stroller for a few minutes at a time and only if it's in motion. The best chance we have of keeping you in there is to feed you snacks or give you toys...which you then throw out. We'd let you walk more if you'd agree to hold our hand, but you want to run free!
Strangers - The typical Stranger Danger stage has taken full effect. Here's the problem: you are a very friendly, smiley guy - people just flock to that smile! When a stranger approaches, you get very nervous. Especially if the person is elderly. For some reason, older people tend to get just a little closer and more in-your-face. It's quite common for you to burst into tears after a few seconds of someone being too close.
Baby Food - We gave up on trying to feed you baby food in the middle of this month. You prefer to eat like the big boy you are.
Baked goods - You are completely unimpressed by baked goods (which breaks your Mommy's heart a tiny bit.) When you were diagnosed with an egg allergy, the allergist told us to slowly introduce baked goods that had eggs baked in them to see how you'd tolerate them. The trouble is you want no part of them. You've eaten the frosting off of a couple cookies this week and took a tiny bite of the frosting on your birthday cake, but that's about as far as you've gone. You love packaged baked goods (graham crackers, animal crackers, etc.) but want nothing to do with the homemade kind. For now, at least.

We are having a ball watching you grow up into this big, smart boy. Daddy just beams with pride as he watches you throw a ball (with your left hand) or make a basket in your "bat-ball" hoop (and he secretly adores that one of your first words is basketball.) Mommy's heart just melts each time you bring her a book & sign "book" and then "please" before starting to climb onto her lap. Even Brooke gets really excited when you learn something new, like how to play with a certain toy or finally do a sign we've been trying to teach you. We just can't get over how bright you are & can't wait to see that little mind expand even more in the coming years.

At 11:55 p.m. one year ago, you completed our family. And today, you bring more joy, more smiles, more love to our lives than we ever could have imagined. Happy birthday, baby boy!

Love,
Mommy & Daddy

Off to school!

Today's was Brooke's 1st day of school! It was a widely anticipated event; we have been talking about it for months, hoping to help her prepare for what the day would be like. Our preparations must have worked because she had a great day :)

Mommy & Daddy had a special gift for Brooke the night before her 1st day...

...new jammies to help her get a good night's sleep! This will definitely become a Reeder family tradition. She LOVES these jammies - she said to me before bed, "Cinderella's going to get lots of rest, too!"

 After a great night of sleep, she got to have a special breakfast: a sprinkle donut! This was maybe her 3rd donut ever and she was thrilled about it! Another fun back to school tradition :)

 Her little brother was excited for her, too. Well, as excited as one can be with a double ear infection & a 103.7 fever. (We've been to the doctor & started antibiotics at lunch today. Fingers crossed he's better by his birthday party!)

Basically the most adorable & grown-up she has ever looked. I can't even handle how much I love this girl.

The Minnie Mouse backpack is just too cute for words. She didn't want to take it off to get into the car to drive to school.

Brand new shoes for the first day! How long before these babies no longer have a speck of white on them? I give it 2 months.

 Walking in to her school like a big girl. My favorite part of this (blurry, sorry) picture is the blue Keds labels on her shoes - takes me back to 1st-4th grade!

 Hung her backpack up all by herself.

There wasn't even one second of hesitation about being in her classroom. She was ready! She started playing with the puzzles right away while I talked to her teacher for a minute.

 Then there was a very quick kiss & hug and she was off to play! Didn't look back to see me leave, didn't seem worried one bit (unlike the other screaming children all around us. Both teachers had a crier in their arms when I left, with another one trying to run out the door. You couldn't pay me enough to be a teacher of 13 2-year-olds.)



While she wasn't super forthcoming with what she did at school, I know she had a lot of fun. They played on the playground, sat on the circle to sing a song, painted (there were 4 all-red paintings in her backpack), & played with Play-Doh. If you ask her what her favorite part was, she'll tell you it was snack time - pretzels & water. Her teachers told me she was their "big helper" today (not a classroom job or anything, more like Brooke's self-appointed role.)

I'm so proud of my big girl for being so brave at school. She's the oldest one in her class, so I'm glad she was able to set a good example. And Mommy was brave, too! I had the hugest smile on my face as I drove her to school & the same smile was on my face as I drove away. I knew she'd have a fabulous time. She doesn't need me anymore...and I'm okay with that!

My apologies, son.

Oh my sweet Joseph,

Mommy owes you an apology. Ok, so several apologies.

I'm sorry I haven't taken enough pictures of you in this first year of your life. Well, enough probably isn't the right word.  Our computer is full of pictures of you in all your handsome glory. But I certainly haven't taken as many pictures of you as I did your sister. Her first year of life was very well-documented. You see, you had the unfortunate luck of being born 2nd. So all of those times that you were being cute and I probably should have grabbed the camera? Yeah, I was likely dealing with your sister or catching up on a thousand things I just didn't have time to do because, well, I had two kids to take care of.

On a similar note, I'm sorry I haven't done enough blogging about your first year. (Pipe down with all your "Well ain't that the truth!", blog readers.) While I'm fairly certain I hit all the big milestones, it's the little things that I didn't always have a chance to document. The world didn't know the exact moment you got your 8th tooth (to be honest, I don't even know...it was sometime this month.) And I didn't write about your sleeping or eating habits every time they changed. Some months, the only real Joe info came in the form of your monthly letter (at least I kept up with those...gimme some credit there?) I did take tons of videos of you this year, so hopefully between those and the blog we'll have enough memories to share when you get older.

I'm sorry you aren't allowed to play in the toilet as often as you'd like. Or throw things into it so that Mommy has to go fishing. Actually, I'm not sorry. It's gross.

I'm sorry you don't get to play with your Daddy all day every day like you want to. If you had your way, you would just spend your days playing ball and saying "Dada" and building intricate Lego towers with him. I wish we could win the lottery or come up with some brilliant money-making scheme that would financially provide enough that Daddy wouldn't have to work & could just play at home with us all day. (Although I'm fairly certain we would break him if that happened. He gets antsy by day 3 of a 3-day weekend.)

I'm sorry that you usually have to eat your sister's scraps. You frequently get the fruit she didn't want or the 1/2 of the cold grilled cheese she couldn't finish. I promise you won't be stuck with her leftovers forever.

I'm sorry that I won't let you have juice. Quite frankly, there is such little nutritional value in juice and oh-so-much sugar that I'm hoping to keep you away from it for a long time. Once your sister learned the word juice, it was all she ever asked for (and threw monumental tantrums if she didn't get it.) We're trying to avoid that with you; kinda like "he won't know what he's missing". Eventually we will let you have small traces of it; your sister maxes out at 4 oz. a day. But at 1-year-old, you will have had juice twice ever (you were 4 months old and we were trying to get you to poop with prune juice.)

I'm sorry I talk about your poop digestive system on the internet.

I'm sorry that one of my nicknames for you is "Giant Baby". While your size doesn't quite break records (your sister still holds all of those titles), you are a bit of a bruiser. And, well, it just rolls off the tongue for me. I'll work on some new ones, bud.

I'm sorry that you will never know what it's like to have a pet. I can (and likely will) pretend that the reason is your dad's allergies. And there's a good chance you and Brooke will be allergic, too. But we all really know the reason is that I just don't like them. Animals gross me out. I don't like touching them, smelling them, the way they just sneak around a corner out of nowhere & scare the crap out of you. I just don't like 'em. The best chance you ever have of having a pet is a fish, and even those are a bit more work/smell than I think I can handle. I will, however, try to expose you to animals whenever possible so you aren't afraid of them like I was. We take an annual trip to the zoo (c'mon, for an animal-hater, hitting up the zoo once a year is impressive.) If we had friends/neighbors with pets, I'd let you get near them (but we don't...) You walked right up to a puppy a couple weeks ago at softball and wanted to pet it. As much as it pained me, I helped you pet its back, and you really did love it. You wanted to chase after the puppy the rest of the night. Full-time pets? Sorry, kiddo, that's just one sacrifice I'm not willing to make for you.

I'm sorry that your sister isn't always very nice. She's still learning how to share and take turns. And she can't grasp the concept that you are too little to be able to do those things; if she has to share, she thinks you should, too. She often takes things from you and yells for you to get away from her stuff. We're working on this with her, but it's a slooooow process. I can't always be there to referee for you, so you're going to have to learn to defend yourself soon, okay kiddo?

I'm sorry that I made you look like a dork at the pool yesterday. The hat was too small, the trunks too big. To add insult to injury, I put water shoes on you so your tootsies wouldn't fry on the hot concrete. Adorable, sure, but also very dorky.

I'm sorry that I will never adequately be able to tell you and show you how much I love you. I promise I will never stop trying.

Think you could forgive your dear old Mom for these things, buddy? I do have your best interests at heart, even when it feels like I'm just shining up my Fun Police badge.

Love,
Your Remorseful Mama

p.s. Dorky outfit or not, you were the cutest little man at the pool yesterday.

Update time.

Holy smokes has it been a busy couple of weeks! There's been a craft show, a baby shower, an engagement, preschool orientation, multiple nieces' birthdays, not to mention the early stages of 1st birthday planning. I'm so exhausted I can hardly focus, so this may all come spilling out in a big ole mess.

Joe...
- has become obsessed with Elmo. We're certain it would have been sooner if his big sister wasn't always dictating what shows we watched. He can even (kinda) say "Elmo" and his face just lights up when he sees him. He enjoys Mickey Mouse a lot, too, but Elmo is his BFF.
- is now an official book lover. And he's really vocal about it when he wants you to read to him. He will grab a book and just start charging towards you going "Ahhhh!" which obviously means "Will you please read me this book?" He also tries to do the sign for book; though it's not quite right, he does the same "sign" consistently. No matter what I'm doing, I make it a point to always stop to read to him. He loves lift-the-flap and touch-&-feel books, but especially likes books with Elmo on them.
- is so much of a Daddy's boy that his very first word every single day is "Dada." During the week, it's more of a question, like "Where is Dada?" On weekends, it's a "Hey! My Dada's home!" kind of exclamation. The relationship between these two absolutely kills me; it's so precious I can hardly stand it.
- spent the ENTIRE day being crabby yesterday. And I'm not being dramatic, it was all day. Except for when he was sleeping. He was even crabby while he ate, and that boy loves to eat. Then he went for a repeat performance this afternoon, going so far as to refuse to eat dinner. Needless to say, I just enjoyed the world's most delish leftover carrot cake cupcake & didn't feel even remotely bad about it.

Brooke...
- is 95% potty trained. Excuse me a minute while I go do a little jig.
- starts preschool next Wednesday. You guys, this girl's like a big kid now. We visited her preschool classroom & teachers yesterday.  She was very excited to go and thought it was so much fun to have Mommy & Daddy there! We are very hopeful that all will go well next week when I drop her off...and then actually leave her.
- can now write all of the letters in her name, though her "K" is almost unrecognizable. Just a reminder, she's only 2 1/2. Mega-impressive, no?
- calls her brother "my buddy" or "little buddy", which is basically the cutest thing to happen since Michelle Tanner said "You got it, dude."

And in case you haven't met your adorableness quota for the day (and in case you don't follow me in any of the social media outlets, i.e Facebook, Instagram, or Twitter), feast your eyes on this little gem...and try hard not to "Awwww!" when you see it.

Bottoms up.

All the cool kids are eating their ice cream cones from the bottom these days, didn't you know? It's the fastest way to get to the yummy cone without having to work around that weirdly cold white stuff on the top. Duh.

Eleven.

Dear Joe,

Almost one! We're just 1 short month away from your first birthday, and we can hardly believe it! This year has absolutely flown by. Each month, you've just plowed through milestone after milestone as far as your physical development goes. This month was no different, as you are now running all through the house and are figuring out how to go down stairs. But this month has really highlighted just how smart you are becoming. You now use 5 signs (please, more, milk, ball, all done) and can say 4 words (mama, dada, ball, milk). You point to things that you want & understand simple instructions ("Joe, get the ball"). You know what comes next during our different routines each day; for example, you start asking for your milk the moment we come downstairs in the morning because you know you get a bottle first thing. You're just wowing us with what you know and can do at just 11 months old! Here are a few of the things you prefer and others that you just don't care for this month:

Favorites
The Kitchen - You just looove to be in the kitchen! You like to play with the magnets on the side of the oven, pull all of the Tupperware out of the cabinet, and get into all the food in the pantry. You like to throw balls all throughout the kitchen, probably because the tile floor is more conducive to bouncing than the carpet. You climb around the chairs at the table trying to get to toys or dropped food, which sometimes results in you getting stuck under a chair. Mommy is constantly stumbling around you while trying to make dinner!
Daddy - Your obsession with your Daddy has gotten even stronger this month. You run around saying "Da Da Da" all day long. The excitement you have when you see Daddy for the first time in a while is just completely precious. You just run to him, wanting to be picked up and hugged immediately. So sweet :)
Dancing - You've shown a real interest in music this month. But not calm little lullabyes or nursery rhymes; we're talking about dance songs! Between your big sister's love of pop music and Mommy's appreciation for oldies, we have a lot of dance parties in this house. You love to join in! If we ask you to dance, you bend your knees and bounce up and down, all the while shaking your fists in the air. It's basically the most adorable thing ever.
Peek-a-boo - This has become your favorite game! You think it's so much fun! You try to play yourself, but your hands usually go up on your head instead of over your eyes. And you often try to repeat us and say "boo!" when you pull your hands down. Very fun!
Exploring your body - That is the nicest way we could come up with to explain your newest interest. You have discovered that you have a body with lots of, um, parts to it, and you just want to explore! With every diaper change, your hands immediately go down to inspect your...boy parts. That's like a boy rite of passage, right? Even though it makes Mommy cringe/blush every time you do it, there isn't much harm in letting you figure out what you're working with. But it has become a challenge to keep your hands out of that area when you have a dirty diaper and need to be wiped!

Not-so-favorites
Getting out of the Bathtub - Same story, different month. We always get you out first before we clean your sister because her soap irritates your skin. You hate to miss out on the extra bath time! (Sidenote: we have this big pink cup with a flexible rim that we use to rinse hair. If anyone tries to take that away from you, you throw the biggest fit!)
Being confined - Now that you are 100% mobile, you hate being confined. You try to climb out of the stroller after being in it for about 2 minutes. You want to get out of your crib the second you wake up (and let us know by starting to fuss immediately.) You had to be held down for both your allergy testing & to check for your ear infections this month, and you were an angry boy both times! You do tolerate the high chair, but we all know that's just because you like to eat :)
Clipping your nails - You really dislike having your nails clipped! The trouble is, it's nearly impossible for Mommy to do it when you squirm like you do. We do it as infrequently as we can get away with, but when they get so long that it starts to pinch us, we settle in for the fight.

You have so much personality, buddy. You certainly have a bit of a temper. If your sister bugs you or we won't let you do/have something, you get very mad. But, honestly? This is pretty rare. You just love life, kiddo. Everything makes you smile and giggle, which then makes us smile and giggle. You're just such a happy little guy!

Thanks for making each day with you full of so much joy. We love you to the moon and back!

Love,
Mommy & Daddy

Messy, messy.

I am soooo not a fan of messes.

I'm just not. A high school friend posted a picture on Facebook the other day of her boys playing outside in a giant mud puddle - covered head to toe in it - and I almost had a panic attack just looking at it. The husband's not cool with messiness either, so you can imagine how much cringing happens around our dinner table while our little munchkins eat.

Unfortunately, messiness comes with learning how to feed yourself. Spaghetti, bananas, yogurt - some things are worse than others. Trying to figure out how to eat with a spoon is no easy task when you're not even one. So needless to say, all kinds of messes are starting to be made around here while our little buddy is figuring it all out.

Joe just loves to have access to a spoon! He doesn't even care to really get food from it; he just likes to be able to hold it and chew on it. This was only the 2nd time that I gave him a chance to try to feed himself. Oatmeal is the perfect food to help teach kids how to use a spoon because it's thick enough to stay on the spoon a really long time when they flip the spoon upside down (as all kids do) to try to put it in their mouth. Or, you know, when they flip the bowl upside down...

Unfortunately, he didn't really care for the taste of the oatmeal. So while he concentrated hard to get some on his spoon and then into his mouth, he stopped after 2 or 3 tries because he knew he wouldn't like what was on that spoon.

It really is a shame he's not a happier kid, isn't it?

It's also a shame he can't clean up after himself...