13 months

There is only one word to describe a 13-month-old: busy. The kid never stops moving! He is officially a "walker" now. After taking his first steps the night before his birthday, he slowly started taking more and more steps at a time. Now the only time he crawls is when he's finding something to help him stand up so that he can start walking around some more. All he does all day is walk places. He's so cute when he does it because he holds his little arms up by his chest. He's very wobbly--Hazen says he looks drunk.
He still doesn't say much. He'll repeat things sometimes, but he doesn't know what he's saying. He says Mama, Dada, baby, mmm, and that's about it. He's repeated "poo-poo" and "echo". He has signed "daddy" a few times--Hazen is really proud of that. His first word was "mama" but his first sign was "daddy".
My favorite thing to do is say "How big is Ian?". Then he'll throw his arms up in the air while I say "So big!!". He always has a huge grin on his face when he does it, like he knows he's a little genius. He also likes to drink out of cups and water bottles now. He can do it himself, but a lot of times he ends up spilling all over and coughing. Yesterday he decided he's too much of a big boy for Mommy to give him his yogurt, so he attempted to do it himself. There was yogurt everywhere. Eventually he gave up even trying to put it in his mouth and just started to take spoonfuls and rub them on his knee.
Last night Hazen and I were talking about how he's starting to understand that words mean something, and that when someone is behind a door they're still there. Yesterday Hazen was in the bathroom and Ian sat outside the door saying "Dada?". Hazen would say "Hi Baby" or "Hi Ian" and Ian would say "Dada?" back to him. The other day I was giving him a bath and I said "baby" to him, trying to get him to say it back to me. He just looked at me and said "Mom". So I said "Baby", and he said "Mom". It was adorable. He's also really funny because he'll cock his head and say "Hmmm?" all the time. The things he'll do amaze me--I can't believe how much they grow and learn in such a short amount of time.
We're still nursing. My goal was one year, but it's definitely not something I can just stop doing. It's part of our bedtime routine--he will not go to sleep unless he's nursed first. I really don't know how long we'll go--I like doing it and he's happy with it, too. I'm hoping he'll self wean within the next year, but we'll see. Whatever happens; I'm in no hurry. He loves "real" food (no more baby food for him). He can drink out of a sippy cup, and he eats pretty much everything. Last night he had an entire order of mini corndogs from Buffalo Wild Wings--the kid can eat! He's also just started feeding other people. He'll only feed me something after he's taken a bite of it first, though. He'll take a nibble out of a Puff and then put the rest in my mouth. He's such a good sharer.
His sleep has improved sooo much! I pushed his bedtime to 8 instead of 7 and it has made such a difference! Once last week he slept from 8-8 without waking. Other nights he's slept until 6 or 7. As long as he gets to bed on time he sleeps great. We did keep him out until 10 the other night and that was a disaster--he woke three times I think. He needs his routine or it messes him all up. I can't complain about the sleep though. I'm finally catching up after a year of waking every 2-4 hours.
He's napping, so I'm going to do some web-surfing. I should do homework, but that's just not as much fun.