Spear is 12 Months Old!

Spear turned 12 months old on December 1st! I use What to Expect the First Year to see where he’s at in his milestones and development and I purchased his monthly stickers here 🙂

HALLELUJAH for being DONE with monthly baby pics… F O R E V E R.

I know at some point it’ll probably hit me and I’ll be sad about saying goodbye to the baby phase of parenting. But that has yet to happen and I literally jumped up and down and did a happy dance when I finished these pics of Spear. I danced all the way to the kitchen and dumped the blanket and little frames in the trashcan.

Then I realized I should probably sell the baby blanket at a kid sale…so I got it back out of the trash.

But still. SO PUMPED.

Spear is doing all the things a 1 year old should be able to do including:

walk holding onto furniture (cruise)
use a few gestures to get needs met

Spear is able to do almost everything a 12 month old will probably be able to do including:

play patty cake (clap) or wave bye-bye. Spear claps and it’s adorable but the bye-bye took him longer to master (which reading this makes me feel better because the book says that most kids accomplish these feats by 13 months)
drink from a cup independently
pick up a tiny object neatly with thumb and finger
stand alone momentarily (it’s a brief moment, but it’s a moment…this is also one that most babies don’t master until 13 months)

Spear is not yet:

say “dada” or “mama” discriminately (most kids will say at least one of these by 14 months)
say one word other than “dada” or “mama” (many won’t say their first word until 14 months or later…Spear said “duck” once but I’m not sure if I should count it or not since he never said anything else!)

Spear can do some of the things a 12 month old may possibly be able to do including:

Play ball (roll a ball back to you)
use immature jargoning/gibberish (Spear babbles constantly!)

He cannot yet:

stand alone well (many babies don’t reach this milestone until 14 months)
walk well (three out of four babies don’t walk well until 13.5 months and many not until considerably later…my older three were all slow to walk. Good crawlers are often slower to walk, late walking is very rarely any cause for concern)

Spear does one thing that a baby his age may even be able to do:

Responds to a one-step command without gestures. Spear obeys pretty well when told “no” or to “stop.” He will also “sit” when told to during times when he’s standing up in the bathtub

He is not yet saying three words or more other than “mama” or “dada”.