1.25 {Almost}

This is the post I was going to write when Shav turned one.
This is the post that languished in my Drafts folder for nearly three months.
These are the rest of the pictures from the little photo shoot I did for his birthday.
These are the pictures that are now out-of-date (but I'll post them anyway).

Oh, well...say it all together now...better late than never!

Let me tell you about this {amazing, fantastic, super-duper, phenomenal, marvelous, incredible, adorable, magnificent} boy!

Back in July, when he turned one, he weighed 20.5 pounds and was 29.75 inches long. I have no idea what his current stats are.  Someday I'll remember to weigh and measure him again.

He has a lot of teeth, although he really doesn't like my finger in his mouth feeling for teeth so I haven't gotten an accurate count for a while.  But he, who started very early with teeth (four months old!), really has A LOT of them.

He does NOT like having a poopy diaper.  Likewise, he does NOT like having a poopy diaper changed.  When I get him up from a nap and he's pooped, he's usually crying hard; and I know that he'll cry while I pick him up from his crib, lay him down on the changing table, undo his clothes, take off his diaper, clean him up...then sometimes he stops crying at this point, but other times he cries all the way until I've got a clean diaper on him and have fastened his clothes again and have picked him up.  I'm really hoping that this strong dislike for poopy diapers will make him a breeze to potty-train!

When I carry him, I almost always hold him on my left side; I've always carried my babies like that.  But what's unique to him is that he will use his right hand, which is on my back, to grab hold of my shirt as he rides along.  I don't remember any of the other boys doing that, but I guess Shav uses that "handle" to feel more secure.  :)

He's a scooter, as I've mentioned before; and as such, he has calluses on his ankles.  The knees of his pants never wear out, but the outside of his ankles does get a little banged up - just like Tobin's did.

He's pretty good at throwing things and will use either arm for that, depending on which arm is closer to the object he picks up and throws.  We have no idea if he'll be a righty or a lefty (although my dad and I are rooting for him to be a lefty).  :)

He waves bye-bye, often just after the person we're saying goodbye to has stopped looking at him.  One evening a while back, Jeff was outside working on the Big White Van (AKA Max, Daisy, and The Yacht); and I was holding Shav on my lap and watching from the picture window in our living room.  Shav was excitedly and repeatedly waving, obviously recognizing that his daddy was out there and wanting to greet him in some manner.  So sweet.

Shav used to not like tummy time at all, but now (and remember, I first wrote this months ago) he does better with it.  He especially likes it if I or someone else gets down on the floor with him and interacts in a fun way, playing with his toys with him, rolling a ball to him, etc.  Now (meaning Oct. 6), when I lay him down on the floor, he rolls over and over and has a blast.  He especially likes it when I lay down next to him, let him roll over, then playfully (and gently, of course) roll him back to his original position while saying to him in a silly, teasing way, "You've gotta roll over!"  I first did that with Josiah when his large motor skills were slow in developing and we were trying to help his advancement.  I suppose I've done it with all of the boys at one time or another; and by seeing me be so goofy with it, they've always laughed hilariously while we do it.  More fun than a barrel of monkeys, I tell ya.

As far as food goes, Shav is developing (and expressing) more preferences than he used to.  Even without saying a word, he communicates so clearly as he sits in his highchair.  His traditional sign for "I'm not ready yet for another bite of food" is putting his left arm up in front of his mouth.  When he wants to let us know that "yuck, I do NOT want to eat that," he twists his whole body to the right and raises his chin as far as it will go so that I can't reach his mouth.  Recently he's been communicating "I want to do it MYSELF" by reaching for the spoon and wrestling with me to get it out of my grasp.  I don't mind him trying to self-feed when it comes to certain foods; but with some things (yogurt, soup, etc.), I'm not ready to give him that freedom yet because that freedom comes with a price tag:  A BIG MESS.  He does really well with finger foods, so I take advantage of that and give him lots of things that he can pick up and feed himself.

He babbles and says things like "dada" and "mama" and "gaga" and "abba."  I'm not convinced that he's assigned the right meaning to certain words though.  However, recently I was holding him while we watched Jeff drive off to work; and something that sounded for all the world like "Bye, Dada!" came out of his lips.  I'm inclined to think it was a happy accident though.  :)

If you've been reading my blog during the past year and a quarter (almost), you know that I've agonized over Shav's sleep - or lack thereof.  He has definitely been my hardest baby as far as sleep goes - no question about it.  But I am happy (thrilled!) to write that he has been doing so much better with that.  Now, instead of it being a rare occurrence for him to sleep through the night, it's normal for him to do so.  He still has nights occasionally when he wakes up (and within the past week, he had a particularly rough night; but I think there must have been a specific reason for that, some kind of pain perhaps); but overall, it is night and day between how he used to be as a sleeper and how he is now.  What a relief!!!

Here's a typical day for Shav:
~ wake up between 6:30 and 7:30
~ eat breakfast (although he's not a big eater at breakfast time...he does, however, drink a lot of milk from a sippy cup at this meal)
~ play, play, play
~ by about 10:00 AM, he's ready for his first nap, so into bed he goes (and on school days, this is when I start serious homeschooling stuff with Josiah and David)
~ he usually sleeps for several hours, and sometimes doesn't even wake up until 1:00 or 1:30
~ lunch, usually lots of finger foods - and milk, of course
~ time to play again (usually the other boys will be having quiet time/naps at this point, and sometimes Shav will be with David, because David LOVES to have his littlest brother with him during quiet time...otherwise, Shav is with me, playing in the laundry room while I load the washing machine, or in my bedroom as I fold laundry, or in the kitchen as I do dishes, etc.)
~ down for his second nap around 4:00 PM
~ up in time to eat supper with the family (he loves being part of the group and watching all the interactions around him)
~ more time to play (and sometimes get tickled by Daddy)
~ bedtime around 8:00 or 8:30 PM
It's a great schedule, and I feel really blessed by it.  The only thing that makes it a little difficult for me is that he doesn't nap when the other boys are having quiet time/naps, so I never get a complete break from all four. The only reason I mind that is because I don't really get to nap.  Most days I don't mind; but occasionally a day will come along when I am utterly exhausted, and I really have to drag myself through the afternoon.  I know when he transitions to one nap a day, I'll be able to get that simultaneous quiet time/naps that I sometimes long for; but at this point in time, I'm abundantly pleased that he still takes two naps, because that morning nap really makes homeschooling a lot easier for us.

He likes to drop things; did you notice?  :)

Shav is so special.  As the littlest one, he is so, so loved by each of us.  I think there is something in us that responds to his littleness; and all of us are a little kinder, a little more gentle, a little more tender when it comes to him.  That's not to say that when he scoots over to Tobin and grabs a toy out of his hand, a few sparks don't fly (they do).  But in spite of that, we all want to take good care of him and be a little extra careful with him.  Being the fourth child in a family just means that there are five other people to lavish love upon you, and our darling Shavi receives it graciously...

...and turns and pours it back upon all of us.