I swore I would never be one of those moms that refers to her kid as any months over one year. I mean, what's the point? Why can't you say he turned one in September, rather than saying he's 13 months in October? Hmmm??

Well, I've failed. Because now all I want to do is tell you all about Michael's developments. Titling a post "One Year and One Month" isn't half as easy as "13 Months". Please forgive me.

Michael is a walking machine. Basically, he never wants to do ANYTHING but walk. Maybe crawl every now and then, but ride in his car seat? Or ride in his stoller? Forget it. He'd rather be walking. He also loves to take mama or dada by hand and lead them precisely where he wants to go. While he has excellent balance, he's still working on refining his steps.

He doesn't just want to walk, either, though. He wants to run. More specifically, he wants to run outside. He loves getting out there with his John Deere tractor and just going. Perhaps it's because the tractor has less resistance than his other walking toy does. It just GOES. I mean, it would roll down our sidewalk by itself if Michael let it. So, he loves to hold on and just go. It gives me slight heart attacks every time, because there are so many bumps in our sidewalk I have visions in my head of him just lurching forward. Needless to say I'm usually running right behind him with arms outstretched ready to prevent any harm I can. Luna, bless her, is always in front of him attempting to corral him. Sadly, it doesn't work very well. He finds ways around her.

Baby boy has suddenly become a picky eater. The only thing that he's guaranteed to eat is cheese and anything that involves it. For example, grilled cheese, cheese quesadillas, cheese slices, mini Babybel cheese, shredded cheese... I think you get my point. It doesn't matter what I offer him, he will not even consider it unless there's cheese involved. But, we are persevering! This cheese addiction does not keep me from attempting to offer him new and exciting things. Just today we tried a turkey wrap. I even put some American cheese on it to tempt him. Sadly, no luck. He decided Luna would enjoy it much more. He has, however, been approving of my fall recipes. I suppose that's because most of them involve sugar and spices like cinnamon.

Oh. One thing that Michael LOVES to eat (along with cheese, of course): peas. I offer him peas and carrots, he eats the peas. I offer him peas and grapes, he eats the peas. My silly boy loves the veggie that many abhor. I suppose that's a good thing!

Whenever he is fed something he actually enjoys, he shakes his head no at Luna when she comes begging. As in, "No, doggy, this food is MINE!" It's too funny.

Along with picky eating came his new-found attitude. While he's still an incredibly happy-go-lucky-laid-back-sort of fellow, he has moments where he decides that whatever you're doing is not what you're supposed to be doing. Take, for instance, this picture.

His pacifier had fallen into the wet grass, and he held it up making a sound that seemed to me like he was saying, "Um, excuse me, clean this off. I want it. NOW."

We're attempting to teach him "please" and "thank you" signs to make us feel like he has better manners. They would be much preferred to the sign, "More," which he knows now and uses for everything.

"More" swinging. "More" cheese. "More" time outside. "More" juice. "More" reading. "More" EVERYTHING!

While before it seemed Michael was perfectly aware when Clark was away and when he returned, he has been more apt to cling to Dada these days. As in, if Clark looks like he's getting ready to go anywhere, be it take out the trash, go to the bathroom, or actually go to work, Michael goes for his legs and will not let go no matter how hard we try to coax him away. It's positively adorable and heart breaking all at the same time. So, needless to say, whenever Dada is home, there's some serious father-son-loving going on.

As you can probably guess, we are still co-sleeping and BF. Clark declared he'd be OK with Michael sleeping with us until his next birthday, but I have a feeling we're going to try (again) to move him to his own space before then (hopefully). Right now his sleep schedule is so fickle that I've given up trying to get him in his crib. Maybe if he actually develops a semi-regular nap schedule, we'll go from there. Until then, though, I'm very content to have him share our space, and so thankful Clark is, too.