It is almost impossible to believe that a year ago today Ben and I were in a hospital room, exhausted, with a little, newborn, baby boy who we hardly even knew! Wow how things can change in a year! This is a big post, and I don’t want to leave anything out, so I am going to go by the sub-headings in my American Academy of Pediatrics book on development at age 1!
By the way, we had a birthday party for Sam on Sunday. I didn’t get a chance to blog about it before today, so I will do a separate post about it tomorrow.

Physical Appearance and Growth:
Weight: 24 lbs 10 oz (75%)
Height: 31.5″ (90%)
Cheeks: quite plump
Hair: not much
Overall appearance: handsome

Movement:
*Walks alone! In case you didn’t see the video last Friday. Sam has moved past cruising and is now a walking machine. He can walk for long stretches–the length of our house at least! His newest trick is clapping while walking. He has not figured out how to stand up on his own yet. Instead, he crawls over to the nearest sturdy object–the wall, the couch, my leg–and uses that to pull himself up.
*Stands on his tiptoes. Sam is always trying to get a better view. This involves anything from slouching down low in his highchair to see under the table, leaning dangerously far out of dad’s arms to see behind him, or standing on his tippy toes to see out the window or into the mirror.

Hand and Finger Skills:
*Throws everything. Sam’s favorite activity right now is to throw toys, food, phones, whatever he can get his hands on. He basically plays fetch by himself. Apparently this is a developmental milestone for age 1!
*Reads books with us. Sam loves to turn the pages of the books we’re reading, usually at a much faster rate than we can read! He likes books like “Pat the Bunny” that have an interactive component.

Language:
*Developing his receptive language. I can tell that he understands more and more of what we’re saying. For example, if I say “Do you want some water?,” he will go get his water bottle. If I say “Sam, come here,” he will look at me, smile, and then run in the opposite direction.
*Babbles all the time. Sam likes to talk in sentences. Those sentences just don’t happen to have any words in them, but the inflection is very realistic.
*May be saying some words? It is hard to say, but we think he might say some words and actually mean them. Today when I got in the car, he said mama! (He was waiting in the car with his grandma). Of course, he also says “mamamama” throughout the day, regardless of my appearance. He also says dodo when looking at Henry sometimes, which could be dog. Or it could just be a sound he makes. It is hard to know. I should probably teach him how to point!

Social:
*Loves to get the attention of big kids and adults. He mainly does this by walking up to them, smiling, swatting at them or something they are holding, and screaming. It’s hard to resist.
*Wants to be in on the joke. Sam is constantly laughing when anyone else laughs around him. This often happens when we are out at the store and people near us are having a funny conversation. It always seems kind of sad because he starts laughing and they usually don’t notice. But it never seems to bother him!
*Plays with friends. He has started playing with his friends at playgroup. They mainly take toys from each other, but occasionally they share them!

Emotional:
*Sam has started throwing little mini tantrums when he doesn’t get his way. They are pretty hilarious though because it is SO easy to distract him that he will go from tantrum to laughter in 5 seconds.
*Very independent. Sam loves to play by himself and is great and finding ways to entertain himself.
*He gets sad if mom or dad leave but he doesn’t have much separation anxiety at this point.

Eating/Sleeping:
*Eats most adult food. He is a good eater still but has recently boycotted Greek yogurt. I must have overdone it!
*Sleeps 11-12 hours at night at 2.5-3.5 hours during the day depending on if he has one or two naps. Lately it has been two.

Sam, you are the best baby we could have hoped for. This has been the most exhausting and the most exciting year of our lives. We are looking forward to many more exciting years to come. We love you more than we can ever say!

–Your Mommy and Daddy