13 Months

Our little Leif isn't quite a toddler, if you define it only by walking, but he definitely isn't a baby anymore. He loves to get involved in all that he can and seems to learn so much each day. He is so close to walking and acts like he is going to several times a day. But then he just drops to his knees and crawls to where he wants to go instead. One of Leif's favorite activities is "cooking" at the play kitchen. He loves to stand there, with his little spatula in hand, moving pots around or taking the sink out. For Christmas, we got him some little wooden fruits and veggies that velcro together and can be "cut" in half with a little wooden knife. If his brother will leave him alone for long enough, he likes to put these in his pots and stir them around. Another of Leif's favorite activities is to play peek-a-boo. His version involves sitting on the ground and shoving his face into a blanket or pillow, waiting for someone to pretend they are looking for him, then popping up with a huge smile on his face before he buries his head again. This game is very entertaining to him and can go on and on long after the adult playing with him has become bored with it ;) Leif's all-time favorite activity is probably taking a bath. No matter what the ailment, taking a bath will always solve it for Leif. He loves to splash and play with the water. He tries to drink the water too. Out of little cups at first, but after I tell him no a bunch of time, he will secretly try to slurp the water up directly out of the tub. I have no idea what his draw to it is since he always ends up choking and coughing over it.
Its so cute to see Leif shake his finger back and forth and try to say "no, no". I guess I must have done this to Asher at some point, because he started doing it to me and Austin occasionally when we were doing something he didn't want us to. Leif picked right up on it, and since we thought it was so cute we only encouraged it by laughing at him and doing it back. So now, quite frequently, he wags his finger at us and babbles something very similar to "no, no, no"
Up until about a week ago Leif only had his two bottom teeth. Accompanied by lots of grumpiness and fussing, his top two teeth have finally emerged. I think they are still bothering him because he pulls at his ears a lot and gets fussy for no real reason sometimes.
Leif has nearly mastered sleeping through the night--we are talking 7 pm to 7 am. Its only been about a month since I started trying to get him to sleep through the night and it has gone smoother than I ever could have imagined. I just stopped feeding him when he woke up, but instead just gave him his binki, tucked him in, and stood by his bed until he fell back asleep. I thought he would be upset and try to get out of his crib, but he never even tried to get up as long as I was touching him. He quickly started waking up less often and now if he wakes up I only have to go in, give him his binki, tuck him in, and stay with him for about 30 seconds. He wakes up about once every other night, occasionally we have a bad night where he wakes up twice, but all in all I have been getting more sleep. I really hope any future babies take after this brother instead of their oldest brother when it comes to sleeping :)

Here is Leif busily cooking away at his play kitchen: