Month Twelve

October 15, 2020

Titus,

And just like that, you’re one year old. 12 months ago, we had to dash off to the hospital to get ready to meet you! Since then, you’ve made your own space in our house and all our hearts. Each and every day this month you have explored new places, figured out new skills, and pulled even more things off shelves and out of cabinets. We love having you as part of our family, with all your energy, excitement, and joy for life.

You’re an amazing, speedy crawler already (fortunately you’re loud on the floor when you’re headed for trouble). This month, you’ve been working on taking those steps, from one, to two , to more and more, you’re off and walking when you want to. When you get tired, though, you drop right back to crawling. By your birthday, you’d walked across the room many times, chasing Mommy, Daddy, your brothers, and even the dog. We love you to see you learning to walk!

With the strength to crawl and walk comes the strength to pull up and climb, too! From stairs, to the slide, to the shoe bin, and the ottoman, you’re climbing anywhere you can get a knee up. Every time we turn around, we see you climbing up something. You can even manage the slide now. The month started with climbing up and down the slide ladder, and now you’ve figured out how to get those legs over to sit and slide down. Noah can’t resist racing over the slide from anywhere, yelling “I’ll catch you!” Fortunately, you’re working on turning around to slide off couches, beds, and to go down the stairs. Eventually, the gates will come down again, sooner than we’re ready to see you be a toddler.

When it comes to exploring, you’ve been getting into everything in the house. If it’s in reach, and isn’t locked, it’s pretty much been explored. You’re a big fan of the shoe bin in the kitchen. This month, we noticed that you had progressed from just pulling all the shoes out to actually putting the shoes over the back of the drawer into the inside of the cabinet. If we can’t find a sandal now, we know where to look. You’re into the cabinets with the pans, the pots, the craft activities, and quite enjoying pulling all of it out onto the floor. You’re faster than a 5.5 earthquake on pulling all the toys off the shelves in your playroom.

Speaking of those toys, we’re watching you learn how all your toys work, from rolling balls down tracks, to working with Mommy on the shape-sorter. We love to see how you are learning new things each day, and especially picking up skills from your brothers. As they play with balls, build tracks, and drive cars around the house. You have their love for books, and sit in your playroom flipping through your board books (after pulling them all down off the shelves).

Being the third child, and the first child to have no food allergies means that you get to eat pretty much whatever you want. Anything we’re eating, you probably get to try. You love eggs and bacon, all kinds of meat, pizza, the list goes on and on. Mommy enjoys trying out new food with you, and you love to have her do it. You’re more than happy to dive into pretty much anything, but will confidently and clearly express your opinion of food you don’t like by twisting your whole body around in the high chair. Molly is also a fan of your eating habits, especially that you’ve taken to dropping food over the side of the chair if you’re getting full. Only the right side, which Molly knows very well.

You love to go outside and play with your brothers. Evening walks generally end at the park, and you get quite fussy if you can’t come out to swing with Daddy or your brothers, or to crawl around the playground. Noah loves to push you around the driveway in your car. You’re big enough to go in the jogging stroller running, so you get to be part of the family run & bike trips around the nearby lakes. Before too long you’ll be right there riding a bike with your brothers.

You’re a talkative little munchkin this month, starting with knowing your name. It’s “Ty!”, said barely above a whisper, but we hear it pretty regularly. “Who’s the baby?” “Ty! Ty!”. You’ve also got “Ma!” or occasionally “Mama!”, and “Da”, both of which are used fairly liberally. Daddy’s been out of town, and a FaceTime call gets “Da! Da! Da!”. You get your brothers names most of the time, and of course, know Molly as “Daw! (dog)”. On a family walk, a dog behind a gate started barking at us as we passed. You looked over at the fence, said, “Daw!” and started growling back at the dog. Mommy almost always sings “He’s Got the Whole World” at bedtime, which includes the line “He’s got Mommy and Daddy”. Daddy sang that part to you waiting for Mommy to come put you to bed, and you responded “Got Mama!”.

You caught Mommy and Daddy kissing in the kitchen, and rapidly crawled over making kissing noises. Whether to just note that we were kissing, or to come get a kiss and snuggle for yourself, we’re not quite sure. You can’t go to bed without your routine, which has to include the night-night hug from Daddy. That hug entails a dive from Mommy’s arms to Daddy, followed by a snuggle. That snuggle can be no more than about 2.8 seconds, and then it’s time to dive back into Mommy’s arms for bedtime.

We love you so much more than we did when we first had the blessing of holding you for the first time just 12 short months ago. We still love you to the moon and back.

Daddy and Mommy