2 Months Old!

It's already time for another monthly photo update! I can't believe how fast my 12 weeks of maternity leave are flying by! In fact, by the time her her next monthly photo rolls around I will have already been back to work for a full week. :( Ugh. I'm going to try to squeeze in as much baby cuddles as I possibly can over these next few weeks!

Updated stats:
Weight -  9 pounds 9.5 ounces (9th percentile)
Height - 23 inches (70th percentile)

1 Month Old!

I can't believe a month has already passed! Here's some updated stats from her pediatrician appointment:

Weight - 7 pounds 3 ounces (5th percentile)
Height - 20.5 inches (25th percentile)

Newborn!

Just like I did with Rocco, I will be taking a photo every month on Gianna's birth date to record her growth during her first year. I've decided to nix the calendar this time - it was really hard keeping Rocco on that darn thing when he got older and more mobile! So here's the first of 13 photos - Gianna at age 0 months old!

And her newborn pediatrician appointment stats:

Weight - 4 pounds 14 ounces (1st percentile)
Height - 18.5 inches (8th percentile)

17 Months Old!

This month's theme is 'St. Patrick's Day' because his monthly birthday actually lands on that holiday :)

And some more photos just because I think he's cute:

16 Months Old!

This month's theme is 'Valentine's Day'

15 Months Old!

This month's theme is "New Year":

Milestones for this month:
- Weight 21lb 10oz (32%), Height 32in (78%)
- Learned to make the fish talking underwater sound (by running his fingers over his lips)
- Can walk very well holding on to only one hand. We think he will be walking independently any day now.

14 Months Old!

This month's theme is "Christmas":

Milestones for this month:
- Learned to blow us kisses, complete with "Mwah!" sound. Cutest.thing.ever.
- Magically ate everything we offered to him, but for only one week. He then went back to being a picky eater :(
- Learned how to remove his own socks and shoes. Thus, the daily battle to get him to keep his socks and shoes on while riding in the car has begun.

13 Months Old!

Now that Rocco is over a year old, we are ditching the monthly photos of him laying on the desk calendar. He's just too mobile and too big to keep that up. However, we are not done with the monthly photos! The new plan is to continue to take a monthly photo of him but with a 'theme' that goes with that calendar month. Some months the theme might just have to be 'cute photo of Rocco' ;)

This month's theme is "Fall Leaves":

Milestones for this month:
- Pulls himself up to a standing position on his own (requiring us to lower his crib mattress)
- Started walking while holding on to furniture (also known as 'cruising')
- Got two teeth at the same time! He finally has teeth!
- Started drinking cow's milk (which was a bigger deal to me than it was to him - I finally put my pump away!)

12 Months Old!

This is a very bittersweet post. This is the last of the calendar photos. But before we get to that, let's review how Rocco has changed in the past month.

He has:
- learned how to express "no", rather vehemently I might add, by shaking his head back and forth. If you are trying to give him food he does not want (which is almost everything), the head shake is also accompanied by an arm waving you off.
- learned to say "cat". Casey is not impressed haha!
- learned to pull to a standing position with our help. We're still working on getting him to do this independently.
- begun to "walk" while we hold his hands, if he's in the mood anyways.
- started to wear shoes. Daycare requires it and he just looks cute wearing them.

I'm just so shocked he's already 1 year old. Rocco is shocked too:

Here's his 1 year stats from the pediatrician:
Weight - 21 pounds 4 ounces (48th percentile)
Height - 31.5 inches (96th percentile)

11 Months Old!

Eleven months old. Eleven. Months. How did this happen?! In one month my BABY will be ONE YEAR OLD!  I am rather certain just yesterday I was pregnant. Excuse me while I go sit in a corner and cry because my baby will soon no longer be a baby....

For the record, in the last month, Rocco:

- learned to crawl! Yes ladies and gentlemen, he now crawls! AKA, terrorizing the cat. Poor Casey.
- learned to put real food into his mouth and eat it all by himself. Ok, so it's only one food so far that he is willing to do this for, but hey, it's progress. He is his mother's child, no doubt about that.
- learned to say "hi" and "uh-oh". The latter, is his favorite new word by far.

He's getting so big, it's basically impossible to not limb chop in photos of him laying down now:

10 Months Old!

In the last month Rocco:

- learned to wave hi/bye
- drank from a straw for the first time
- learned to army crawl (but only if he REALLY wants something)
- can now stand by himself, while holding on to something, for a pretty long period of time

Here's his 10 month photo: "Heyyyy ladies!"

9 Months Old!

In the past month Rocco:

- learned to hold his own bottle
- said 'da-da' for the first time (for the record, I won since he said 'ma-ma' first the month before!)
- learned to clap his hands
- still has no teeth and basically no hair

Here are his 9 month stats from his pediatrician appointment:
Weight - 18 pounds 14.5 ounces (24th percentile)
Height  - 28.5 inches (60th percentile)

8 Months Old!

In the past month, Rocco:
- has continued to be a great eater! He loves everything, but his new favorite food is mangoes!
- has learned to say 'ma' and 'mum' but only says it when he's upset :(
- has learned to give 'high fives'
- has decided that naps are overrated and some days goes without taking a nap at all, much to our dismay

7 Months Old!

In the past month Rocco has had a LOT of 'firsts'! He:
- had his first taste of solids! So far he likes bananas, green beans, and sweet potatoes.
- went to Disney World for the first time!
- went to the playground for the first time! He really enjoyed swinging and hanging on the monkey bars.
- went to the beach and swam in a pool for the first time! He LOVED it!

The thing Scott and I are most excited is that in the past month Rocco is FINALLY sleeping through the night consistently! This unfortunately did not happen naturally, we had to do a bit of sleep training to get this miracle to occur. It was rough at first but it was completely worth it. We're all much happier now that we are all getting sleep! Just look how happy he looks in his 7 month photo:

6 Months Old!

I can't believe Rocco is half a year old already! Time really does fly by quickly. He now weighs 17lbs 7.5oz (50th percentile) and is 28in long (92nd percentile).

In the past month he has:
- gone on his first stroller ride (without being in the bassinet). He loves the new and improved view!
- begun sitting up unassisted, but not for too long - he doesn't like it very much
- celebrated his first St. Patrick's Day and Easter
- been Baptized!
- started to stand a little bit with assistance

Our little baby boy is definitely growing up fast! Time needs to slow down.

5 months old!

Rocco has been so much fun this past month doing lots of new things!
- He learned that he can reach for things (besides just what hangs above him on his playmat).
- He now prefers to suck on his hands instead of a pacifier and has weaned himself off of them.
- He started blowing spit bubbles, which is cuter than it sounds.
- He learned how to get himself back to sleep on his own (sometimes).
- He moved out of the pack n' play in our room and into his crib in his nursery.
- He no longer hates tummy time! In fact, he's now rather good at it

His 5 month birthday landed on St. Patty's Day, so Rocco got in the spirit ;)

A Daily Dose of Rocco

If you have ever had a baby, more than likely at one point or another you have had a stranger (always a woman from my experience) come up to you and tell you to make sure to enjoy your little baby because they grow up in the blink of an eye. They aren't joking.

Since Rocco was born, we've been taking a photo every month on his birth date, the 17th (or as close as possible now that I've gone back to work), so we can record how much he has grown and changed every month over the first year of his life. We wanted to keep the backdrop colorful, but the same, in every photo so we chose to just lay him down on the rug in his nursery. We also needed an object in every photo to serve as a reference point for how much bigger he is getting in comparison. Since we are taking a photo every month, the choice was obvious - a calendar! We are even able to keep his outfit the same every month because we bought the same cute whale onesie (to go with the whale theme of his room) in every size up to 12 months.

Now that he is one-third of the way through his first year, you can really see a lot of changes! Take a look for yourself:

Even though I am taking a photo every month, I still feel like I am missing capturing things. The small everyday things. Like how he wakes up with a smile on his face in the morning so happy to start his day, no matter how much (or how little) he slept the night before. Or how he closes his eyes and falls asleep while still drinking his last bottle of the night before his bedtime. So to make sure I capture his everyday mannerisms, those small things that make Rocco, Rocco, I am going to try to take a photo of him daily. Starting with today. So here is today's photo: a close-up of my happy boy smiling at me while he played on his activity mat after he came home from school.

Also, here are his 4 month stats from the pediatrician: Weight 14lb 4oz (40%), Height 26in (87%).