the cheese stands alone

yesterday, while at mom and dad's house celebrating mom's birthday and mother's day, talan took his first 2 steps all by himself.
all day he kept letting go of things to stand by himself, usually for much longer than normal. at one point i was feeding him pieces of cake. he'd crawl over to me, stand himself up, take a forkful, let go of my leg and stand by himself. then he started getting braver and eventually took a step. a bit later, 2 steps.
no steps today, but i did convince him to stand alone for a photo op first thing this morning.

13 months

today talan turned 13 months old and he's still not walking. he is finally, however, walking while holding onto our hands. at least most of the time. he is completely steady and makes it seem like he could just let got and keep walking on his own. he probably can, he just won't.
the other day jessica and justin came over and we tried getting him to walk back and forth between us without holding on to us. he took 1, maybe 2 steps but most of it was him basically throwing himself to the person across from him.
he continues to let go of things and stand on his own but once he realizes, he slowly and gently lowers himself to his knees.
as with last month, his favorite book continues to be "the wheels on the bus" which robin, sara and josh sent him for his birthday. he makes us read it over and over and he'll do most of the motions with us as well. while changing him, i often sing it to keep him relatively still. the other day he repeated me and said "beep beep." dave walked in and said "great...so this kids entire vocabulary is all sound effects!" which is true. he continues to say "woah" and "wow" at all things. he will sometimes say "beep beep" and will saw "awww" when he sees an animal or a soft toy/blanket. he has, however, been saying "mama" as well. not necessarily to me, just to repeat me. i highly doubt he even knows that i am mama.
if he wants to eat, instead of putting his hand to his mouth the way you are supposed to sign it, he will slap himself on the right ear....hard. he has occasionally signed it the correct way but he prefers hitting himself in the ear. i correct him every time by showing him how i do it and then doing it with his own hand but then he'll just slap his ear again. whatever. we know what he wants.
he does like to eat, but he doesn't do it very well. he isn't the world's greatest chewer, so there are things that i just can't give him to eat or else he'll choke himself. it seems like he'll suck on things for a bit and then try swallowing it. he LOVES chips but after many times of seeing him make a face like "woah, this really hurts going down" and then coughing, we realized no chips until he learns to chew. he loves chicken and continues to love sweet potatoes. he also loves to eat pea pods, but typically i'll find pea pod carcasses all over the kitchen floor.
which leads me to another thing. he loves to make a mess with his food. he'll swing his arm back and forth across his highchair tray to send food flying through the kitchen. either that or he'll simply drop it, piece by piece, onto the floor. the other day he was eating a grilled cheese. apparently he was done so he picked a piece up and dropped it on the floor. i looked at him and said "NO!" and he stared me down, the same way hayden always did, picked up another piece and dropped that one on the floor never taking his eyes off of me. this continued until every piece was on the floor. i went from just saying "NO!" to then saying "NO!" and slapping his hand. but the end result was the same. the slap made no difference.
he seems to not really enjoy the stroller very much. i don't remember hayden being like that. it seemed like hayden could just get in and enjoy the ride, even though he was especially active. with talan, he wants nothing but to get out. i keep telling him maybe if he learns to walk but that doesn't even work. the second you put him in he is squirming and twisting trying to get himself free. if he does sit still he immediately starts signing "more" so i give him food. both he and hayden have learned if they are out in a store i feed them to keep them quiet and occupied.
talan continues to be a good sleeper, going to bed at 7pm and waking up around 7am. he still takes 2 naps...most of the time. one at 9:30am and the other at around 1pm.
he has finally decided he will drink milk so the only formula he gets is a cup in the morning and that's just so we can get rid of it!
he loves to babble, and it seems at times, to lecture you. the whole time he has a very serious and stern look on his face and he'll be waving his hand or just one finger in the air.
he tries to climb on everything. he climbs up on the lip of the entertainment center and the molding in the bedroom to look out the window. he has been trying to climb up on the couch and into the tub as well. he learned very quickly, just on his own and not because he took a big fall, to turn around when he's going down a step. if he's up on our bed you'll see him turn himself around like that's going to help him land safely off the bed.
he loves to go outside and will cry when i walk hayden out to the bus in the morning simply because he wants to come too.
we finally changed car seats and he is now sitting front facing which he loves. the first 2 days he would get in and have this look on his face like "i am the coolest thing around." it's much easier not having to carry him around in that 40 pound car seat now, and it's nice that the weather has been cooperative where we haven't had to bundle him up to get him in and out of the car. it is a pain when he falls asleep in the car seat and then we just have to wake him up to get him out of the car and into a store though.
he still isn't that into tv or movies, he still loves to dance to music. he's still the happiest baby around but he can get mad. when he gets mad, if you're picking him up, he'll jump/kick his legs really hard and it's pretty funny. he crawls super fast. he loves the cat. he still loves super soft things. he now takes his blanket with him around the house, making sure to always take it out of the crib when we get him up. he recently started making a scrunchy smiley face, especially when you take the camera out. papa discovered he cracks up when you say the word "blue" (i think he thinks we're saying "boo" or "boom" either way, it gets him every time.) he loves to play in hayden's room with or without hayden. he likes to play peek-a-boo but still covers his ears instead of his eyes when asked "where's talan?" he LOVES to wave and will wave to everyone he sees, sometimes for up to 5 minutes. he loves baths but has recently decided he doesn't like us washing his hair. he still coughs like a 90 year old smoker and it's even worse right now because of his cold. he doesn't care if another kid steals his toys. he's still the most chill baby there is. he still loves jumping. he loves going down to play in the basement. he also loves playing in the kitchen. he can play by himself for long extended periods of time. you can leave him upstairs while typing a long blog and know the only trouble he'll get into is removing all of the dvds. oh, and sometimes ripping a huge hole in the living room window screen.
happy 13 months, baby talan! we love you!

1 year pictures

i'm usually really neurotic about getting the boys in for their pictures on the actual date they turn x months old. this time around i had planned on getting talan's 1 year pictures taken on his birthday since i had gotten so much done for his party the day before. then my camera broke first thing in the morning and i realized i would end up dying from a heart attack if i tried to pack that in as well. too much stress.
he's had a cold and has had non stop snot pouring out of his nose so i decided i'd wait until that cleared up a bit. and here we are just over a week later and i finally went and had them taken. it was kind of a last minute thought. like...hey, when hayden gets home we'll run over and have them taken before i have to head back out with talan to get him his shots.
when we got there at 11:45, they told me they could get us in at 1pm. not what i was hoping for. but about 10 minutes later they paged us stating that the 12pm appointment didn't show. talan was in a great mood, but as usual, once the cameras came out he became mr. serious. not as much as his 9 month photos, but it took a bit of work to get him to crack even the tiniest of smiles.
they turned out great though.

12 month check up

about 2 weeks ago i had to take talan into the dr. because his cough had become even worse than normal. the dr. prescribed a new breathing treatment medicine and also gave us a prescription for claritin and a steroid that we needed to fill only if the cough didn't get better in a few days.
she looked in his ears and said they looked good but said his nose was a mess. several days later he was one big ball of snot. so i just figured it was a bad cold and the cough started before the snot did.
then, last week, hayden came down with a cough and then a fever. at one point we got a reading of 106. i figured he just got what talan had only a little worse. he ended up feeling better by sunday and on monday he went to school.
then yesterday happened. talan was going in at 9:10am for his 1 year check-up. hayden had gotten himself dressed and was playing downstairs. when i called him up so he could get his coat on and get ready for the bus he started complaining that his ear hurt. the nite before he was telling me his head hurt. so i started wondering if the fever was the first sign of an ear infection. he was crying, which he's NEVER done with an ear infection, so i called the dr. to see if they could squeeze him in as well. thankfully they could so i ran out to tell the bus driver he wouldn't be going to school, we packed up and headed out.
the dr. looked in hayden's ears first and said the one ear had a HORRIBLE ear infection. i have to start remembering this with hayden...super high fever usually means an ear infection a few days later.
she gave us a prescription for some medicine and then gave him some motrin since the pain was so bad. then he sat while talan was check out.
she looked in talan's ears and said that his didn't look 100% either. so she wrote him out a prescription as well. at this point, if either one of the boys gets another ear infection...especially if they get one during the summer...we'll have to start looking into getting tubes since they've had several within the past few months. hayden only had 1 in his first 4 years and then last year he had several.
she check out the rest of talan and said that he looked really good. he weighed in at 20 pounds 14 ounces...at his nine month check up he weighed 20 pounds 1 ounce....which put him in the 10-25%. he measured in at 30.5 inches which put him in the 75%. she said they call it the toddler drop where they start getting active and stop gaining weight. she said they aren't worried since he is growing lengthwise.
talk about polar opposite children though. hayden was at one point 95% weight but only 10-15% height. different in every way, those two.
we are going to be in the process of switching talan over from his formula to milk. he doesn't seem to like it, so we'll first start by giving him his formula in a sippy cup. then we'll start gradually adding milk to it until it's just milk.
we have to go back in to see the dr. in 2 weeks so she can check his ears and make sure they cleared up. due to our horrible deductible, she put the boys on amoxicilin since it's free at meijer. if that doesn't work we'll have to go get the over $100 medication for BOTH of them!!! so here's hoping the free antibiotics work!
so other than the ear infection, talan is strong and doing well. now we'll just work on the milk and walking thing!

first birthday party

i apologize for not getting these pictures up sooner, however, of all the days for my camera to die, it did so on talan's first birthday. fortunately, we have an entire family that is as snap happy as i am so we had about 4 cameras taking pictures for me all evening.
thank you to all of you photographers that came out for the party and took hundreds of pictures for me. i couldn't have done a better job myself.

after much debating on whether to have talan's party on the saturday after his birthday or on his actual birthday, i gave into my neurotic ways and had it on his actual birthday. i couldn't possibly imagine him eating his cake NOT on his actual birthday.
because of his love of jumping we had a jumping themed party. we decorated with 1st birthday goods as well as bunnies, frogs, kangaroos, grasshoppers, and trampolines. the main cake was a trampoline....i did the best i could but this may be the cake we look back on and laugh at how bad it was...we also had mini bunny cakes and frog cupcakes. i also made a mini version of the trampoline cake, minus all of the black frosting, for talan. the dessert table also had the sugar cookies and chocolate suckers in the shapes of frogs, bunnies, kangaroos and grasshoppers that i had made.
since we decided to make it so inconvenient on everyone by having the party on a wednesday, we decided to feed them all dinner. we ordered bbq broasted chicken, chicken tenders, broasted potatoes and rolls from chicken king...THE ONLY place to get chicken. we also had chips, potato salad and cole slaw.
those lucky enough to participate in this magnificent feast consisted of mom and dad, jenn and rainah, jessica, melanie, ashton and lorelei howard, tina taylor, and caroline skiver. daniel skiver also stopped by around 8 o'clock when he got done with work.
it appeared everyone enjoyed the meal....especially dave who has eaten it for lunch AND dinner for the past 4 DAYS. that's not even a joke. even hayden ate 1 entire chicken tender. talan sipped on his bottle but also enjoyed some chicken tenders, broasted potatoes and rolls.
when dinner was done we all gathered around the mini trampoline where all of talan's presents had piled up. dave took talan and helped him open the presents, with some help of course, from hayden. considering he doesn't like to sit still for more than a second, he did a really good job sitting on dave's lap the whole time. he got a little bored when clothes were being opened but as soon as he opened a toy that made noise he'd sit there quite content.
some of the MANY gifts he received were: a leap frog fridge dj (which hayden has played with FAR more then talan has), a baby mp3 player (hayden got one for his birthday, why not talan?!), a jumping zebra, a giant stuffed dog blanket, books, clothes, a farm animal truck, a puzzle, a lawn mower, a ball popper, and quite a bit more. everyone was so generous and we thank you for all of the great gifts!
after the presents were all opened, the adults started trying to take the toys out of the packaging (if you've ever done this, you know this process can take several hours) and putting them together. the kids all started playing with those toys that didn't need to be put together...the favorite being the ball popper that all the kids were playing with at one point. good thing talan doesn't take after his brother, and he doesn't mind sharing....for now at least.
after we let the kids play for a bit it was cake time. we sat talan in his highchair and the paparazzi gathered 'round to take pictures. hayden helped by blowing the candle out and then talan stuck a finger into the frosting. as soon as he got his first taste of the sugar he couldn't shovel it in fast enough. when he did eventually stop we pulled him carefully out and ran him upstairs to get him changed and cleaned up so that we could eat our cake.
when we brought him back downstairs we put him in his jumper where he happily jumped for the rest of the evening.
when everyone headed home we sent them with a big bag of goodies. the kids got a wind up bunny, a jump rope, a stuffed frog, a bouncy ball with a frog inside, jumping grasshoppers, and they all got to take home one of the ball hoppers that you jump on. the adults got a bag with cookies, chocolate suckers and a tin with talan's picture on it and inside some "jumping beans." i tried desperately to find some real mexican jumping beans, but unfortunately they are not in season until july or august. so we had to make do with the little pill looking jumping beans that my dad remembered growing up with.
even though it was about 9 o'clock by the time we were putting t-money to bed, he was still in a great mood. he seemed to really enjoy the whole party. the food, the presents, being the center of attention, and of course...the cake!
here are just a few of literally the 400 pictures i gathered from dad and jessica alone! and people say the second kid hardly has any pictures taken of them. HA....not my kids.


all ready for a party:

the birthday throne:

mmm, chicken king:
the dessert tables:


frog cupcakes:
talan's cake:
trampoline cake:
the birfday boy:
hayden:
teens, jessica and jenn discussing how awesome my parties are:
johnny cash folsom prison stripes:


ain't that the truth:
the big stuffed dog blanket:
he LOVED his winnie the pooh bear from aunt ruth and uncle jeff:
are we done yet?!:
sitting back and checking out the loot:
whoever heard of a bouncing zebra? apparently fisher price:
one of the favorite toys of the evening voted on by all children ages 1-5:

what is this you're giving me?!:
trying it out:
are you sure i'm allowed to be doing this?:
ok then:





the damage done:
trying to lick the last bit off before being cleaned up:
always moving:

1 year

at 12:22 this morning, talan cash turned 1 year old. he was gracious like his brother and came out quickly, but unlike his brother, not so forcefully. and even after an entire year, i don’t believe that i’ve thought about returning him even once. that’s saying something.
as you may have read once a month, talan has been a happy, relaxed and easy going baby. he’s had to deal with his share of illnesses in his first year of life, including a stay in the hospital at 6 weeks old for pneumonia, an 80 year old man smoker’s cough that he has battled since day 1, countless colds and a dermoid cyst near his eye which will one day be removed. but through it all, he has continued to be, dare i say, the best baby that ever has been.
after having hayden, let’s just say NOT the best baby that ever was, many people would ask…and you want more?! my answer was always…why not?! they don’t get any worse than this one, so why stop now before getting a good one?! my dad always insisted that things CAN get worse and i better watch what i say.
and along came talan giving me polar opposites in almost every way.
he entered the world weighing in at 7 pounds 3 ounces and measuring 21 ¼ inches. after 1 year of formula, gerber baby food, and some table foods he now weighs in at around 22 pounds and quite a bit longer than 21 ¼ inches (exact weight and measurement to be posted after his 1 year checkup on the 15^th).
talan continues to sleep relatively well. he typically takes his morning nap around 9:30am. there are several days he doesn’t actually sleep, but for the most part he typically does still get his morning nap in. he then will go back down around 1 or 1:30 for his afternoon nap and then goes to bed around 7 and doesn’t wake up until around 7:30-8am.
he hasn’t been eating table foods as well as he was last month. it’s most likely because he hasn’t been feeling well lately, but he’s just been much more interested in his bottle again. when he does eat food, his favorite is pizza. last nite he ate almost an entire piece by himself.
i have given him a sippy cup several times with milk in it and he’s looked at me as though I’m insane. he refuses to drink it. not sure if he just wasn’t getting anything out of the cup or if he just didn’t like the milk, i put formula in it and he instantly drank it. so…we know he can drink out of a cup. it just has to be the right stuff (a little new kids reference seeing as though they have reunited).
we still have not switched talan over to the big car seat as we’re just trying to make it through the winter with him in the infant carrier. we’re hoping we’ve seen the last snow fall so the switch should be coming soon. don’t freak out…my dr. totally understood so you should too.
talan continues to love jumping but has grown to enjoy swinging in his jumper even more. or maybe it’s just that he’s a little too big for the jumper and can’t quite jump in it the way he used to. either way, he now loves to swing.
i took him outside yesterday as it was 66 degrees. he sat in the grass picking at it and trying to put anything he could in his mouth. every time he’d start to crawl he’d sit himself back up. grass feels pretty weird when you’re used to nothing but hardwood and carpet! he eventually got used to it and was soon crawling all over. this summer is going to be work between trying to keep him off of the concrete so he doesn’t put holes in his pants or scrapes on his knees and him putting everything in his mouth.
he loved when i put him down the slide and loved the wagon ride even more. hayden pulled him and our next door neighbor’s daughter around for quite some time before he passed it on to me. talan just sat in the seat smiling and talking away to kylie.
he has begun to take A FEW steps when he hold on to our hands, but he prefers not to. he does walk along the furniture quite fast though. he has also started letting go of things and standing on his own for a few seconds at a time. last friday i actually saw him stand on his own for about 30 seconds until he suddenly realized what he was doing and dropped to his knees. he also walked a little ways holding on to his walker the other day. until he realized he could again, drop to his knees and walk on them.
hayden was never a climber and i’m wondering if talan will be one. i have seen him climb up on the baby gate several times now and he loves to pull himself up and climb up on anything that he’s able.
he has wicked strength, just like his brother. his new favorite thing is to go into the bathroom and turn the hot water on in the bathtub. we can crank that thing off as hard as we can and he just comes in and with one twist turns it on. he thinks it’s the world’s greatest game. so between that and him constantly unrolling the toilet paper, the bathroom door is now always closed.
last month he was next to impossible to change as he wouldn’t lay still for even a second. for whatever reason he’s given us a break this month and it’s not quite so difficult…..most of the time.
he’s been very into fake laughing lately. in fact, the other nite at around 2am when he woke up, dave went in to rock him. after calming down he apparently thought it’d be a good idea to sit there and laugh. in the dark. at 2am.
he also has this thing with his arms. he’s always moving them as if he’s directing. he’ll fling them above his head or dramatically side to side. he’ll babble away and his arms will just be flailing all over the place. occasionally he’ll raise one hand out above his head and put his head down. it’s funny and it’s weird. and it’s totally talan.
he loves to dance, he loves to push buttons…especially on the tv, he loves to turn the phone on speaker phone and just look at me and smile as soon as the recording comes on telling you to hang up. he loves baths. he loves to wave to people, especially when they walk in or out of the door. he loves hayden and the cat. in fact, the other day, a cat was on tv and i swear he was saying “meow”. he absolutely LOVES soft things. his blanket is one of the softest materials in the world and he’ll just bury his face in it, wiggle around and say “awww.” he loves to chew on things and put things in his mouth. the other day at the dr. he crawled over to the door and he tried chewing on the hinge. he loves to smash the food on his highchair tray or fling his hand across it making all of the food fly off.
he’s still not a fan of getting changed. he hates when you wipe his nose or do anything to his face, really. he hates having to sit still for his breathing treatments…or sit still in general i guess. He’s getting worse about crying when he sees me leave a room. he just doesn’t want to be left behind. there really aren’t many things he dislikes all that much. he’s just too easygoing.
we have had an amazing first year with him and i can’t wait for the year to come. he has changed so much in so many ways, but he has remained that sweet, happy, chill baby that we brought home 1 year ago.
it seems like talan has always been here, a part of our family. but then in so many ways it feels like it was yesterday that he came to join us.
as much as i’m not a baby lover, i am going to miss him being a baby as we move into the toddler years. but i’m excited to see him grow and learn and to see his personality develop even more.
we love you so much, talan cash. i'm not sure i remember what life was even like before you and i know i don’t want to remember. you have brought so much love and joy and happiness into this family and we are so grateful you are ours.
enjoy your first birthday and this next year ahead. just as i tell hayden almost every day, you will ALWAYS be my baby.
happy birthday talan cash!!!!

one week from today

talan turns one, a week from today. wow did that year fly.

(thanks for the picture, jenn. it was too good not to steal)