Bruce is officially 1

Bruce's birthday was technically on Wednesday, but we're pretty loose when it comes to dates around here. we actually had cake and singing and whatnot 2 weekends ago when my parents decided last minute to come out for the long holiday weekend.  I'll post pictures from that in a separate post, mostly because he got so dirty and was so covered in cake that I can't promise the frosting won't smear across this post.  This is probably going to be long since I feel like I haven't done a great job of writing about my little guy and who he is and is growing up to be.  Let's all agree that this is mostly Natalie alleviating her mommy-guilt.  So with that in mind, let's jump in...

---

Thursday was his 1 year checkup at the doctor and wouldn't you know - our Chubba weighs a whopping 24 lbs 10oz.  He's also 31" tall, which puts him in the 95th and 90th percentile for weight and height.  Our pediatrician used some very confusing and technical medical jargon to describe him when she walked in the room yesterday, "Look at this guy, he's a tank!".  Thanks for clearing that up Doc.  It makes sense since all of his clothing is now 18-24 months.  I'm now even more excited to be having a boy - since Bruce has been growing SO FAST all of his clothes are in really good condition.  Sure he's hard on them, but how badly can you wear out pants when you've only worn them for a couple of weeks?  This is good news for Wyatt and bad news for the mom that has to drag her kids to a clothing store once or twice a month.

Obviously, this kid is getting enough to eat.  His favorite food is by FAR chocolate.  Yup.  No other foods come even close.  It doesn't matter what kind of food it is - if it's got chocolate in it or on it he's going to eat as much as he can get his hands on.  Which is good for him and crappy for mom.  Thanks to his sister, he's also a big fan of peanut butter (I almost passed out when I realized she had given him some), chicken nuggets, scrambled eggs, cheese sticks, yogurt, waffles/pancakes, strawberries (again, thanks Matilda), and mashed potatoes, and {just like his sister} he's obsessed with Mum-Mums.  And if he had his way, it would all be served with a large sippy cup of chocolate milk.

Bruce is in this stage where he knows to smile and be cute when I take a picture.  I wish it would last.

Chubba also decided to follow the example of his buddies (there were 4 boys all born about 6-8 weeks before him) and started walking about 3 weeks ago.  They're all champion runners and fortunately for me, Bruce can lumber but not race through the house {yet}.  This has been one of my least favorite milestones since Matilda didn't take a step until 14 months and this guy decided to start making my life even harder a whole lot sooner.  But I will admit that it's really awesome when he toddles over just to give me or Scott or Matilda a kiss.  He wants nothing more than to be a Big Kid and do everything his sister does.  His climbing skills are impressive - he can now climb the staircase in less than 35 seconds.  And yes, I time him.  For now, he only goes "up".  Let's hope that "down" is learned easily and without a trip to the hospital.  Seriously.

Soon enough buddy.  Soon enough.

Some of his favorite things to do are "fly" his airplane toy in the air, drive his big trucks and little cars around (complete with noises), bug the dog, tackle anyone lying on the ground, and {his favorite} play ball.  Bruce absolutely *LOVES* to play catch or roll the ball back and forth.  We have 4 or 5 different sized balls of varying types and he's constantly carrying one around.  He loves to come up to you and yell, "catch!" as he's tossing something into your face.  It's a bit rough when it's a matchbox car and not the nerf football, but he'll learn eventually {I hope}.  He also has a red wagon that he puts all of his balls and toys in and pulls around the house.  It's basically adorable.  Just 3 days ago he figured out how to get on and off the little ride-on toy we have... so when he's not playing with the balls and trucks, or getting into the cabinets and drawers, trying to pull trash out of the garbage can, pulling books and movies off shelves, or otherwise causing a huge mess, you can find him riding around the downstairs.

His propensity for creating chaos and inducing severe mom-stress has led to the evolution of an incredible defense mechanism: the kid is a world class snuggler.  Yup.  Every time I want to get mad he flashes his big blue eyes at me and gives me the goofiest smile, which is quickly followed by him coming up and giving me a huge hug and many, many kisses.  His sister has taught him well... Although sometimes I think God has intentionally given me very lovey kids - I'm pretty sure I would be completely bald by now if they weren't so good at melting my heart.

Now, *I* find his vocabulary very impressive, but that's because I had always heard that boys tend to have delayed verbal skills compared to girls.  I realize that he is far from "extraordinary" and he's not a chatterbox (that would be his friend Owen), but I'm still excited about how easily we can communicate already.  It's not too hard for me to figure out what he's asking for or wants.  I also love how frequently new words and phrases pop up.  His first word was technically "dad", but that's kind of a given for most kids so if you ignore the "dada" and "momma", his for wordS were "thank you".  It's a good thing Scott was sitting next to me when he said that because I don't think he would have believed me otherwise.  But he was reaching for a Mum-Mum cracker and when I handed it to me he said, "thank you!"  He's a very polite little guy - I guess my reminders for Matilda made an impression.  He can say dog, Hoss, catch, ball, mum-mum, night/bedtime (nie-nie), more, that, this, no, yes, Amma (he learned this one VERY quickly - it's Gramma and he started saying it about 10 minutes after my mom walked in the house), mine, bottle, fish (goldfish), and up.  I try not to be concerned, but there's still no word for Matilda or anything close to a nickname or derivative of her name.

Right now, his favorite person in the world is Scott, followed by Matilda and then my Mom with my Dad as a close second.  That last one might be related to the amount of Rice Krispie Treats provided at a near constant rate.  But every time the front door beeps, regardless of where Bruce is in the house, he starts yelling for "DA DA DA DA!" and heads towards the front door.  The excitement only dies down once he's been picked up and hugged.  Matilda gets a lot of credit for her patience with Bruce.  He's definitely rough and she's just not used to all the tackling and pulling and pushing and smashing that comes with having him as a younger brother.  But she rarely gets mad and instead seems to understand that he does these things because he's little and doesn't know better.  When he accidentally pulls her hair she never snaps back at him, even when it makes her cry.  That being said, I hear, "Brucie!  NOOO!" about fifty times a day.  But they have a good dynamic for which I'm very grateful.  Matilda knows that she's the Queen Bee and {for now} Bruce is on board.