Information update:

At thirteen months, Thomas is walking like an absolute pro. Lately he's started running, which makes him extremely hard to keep up with. He loves going outside to play, and tries to play with Lucky whenever Lucky will let him. Physical activity is the key phrase every day. Climbing up on boxes, rocking on his big bike, running all over the house, tumbling around and mildly roughhousing with Mommy or Daddy - the boy is a ball of kinetic energy that just won't quit. Some of his finer motor skills are coming right along as well - lately he's been making great strides in spoon usage. He still always makes a mess and eventually resorts to his trusty hands, but more and more food has been making it to his mouth via the spoon, and even frequently the bowl end of it. Speaking of food, Thomas is not a picky eater, but he does have a few favorite foods: macaroni & cheese, spaghetti, lasagna, ramen noodles (see a pasta theme here?) vienna sausages, peaches, pears, oranges, and blueberry muffins. If you want to make him really happy, take him to Olive Garden and let him have some of your spaghetti and breadsticks. He goes "mmmm" when he's particularly happy with his food, and you'll hear it so much you'll think the room is buzzing.

Thomas is "talking" up a storm as well, and some of what he says is finally starting to sound like words. So far he can verbally indicate (or in some cases recognizably say) mama, dada, bowl, spoon, diaper, baby, more, dog, uh-oh, and ball. While he can't say them yet, he's also learning his body parts now, and has started pointing to his ears, toes, feet, etc. when we say the words for them. His comprehension is FAR ahead of his ability to speak right now, but he's doing his best to make it catch up ASAP. Thomas loves looking at books and being read to for short periods of time; recently his favorite book has been Go, Dog, Go!, which frequently gets read three times in a row. Every time we get to the last page he tries to say the last words - "dog party" - with us.

At this point Thomas likes to try to be involved in what Mommy and Daddy are doing, so he's become quite the little helper. He tries to help empty the dishwasher whenever Scott and I aren't looking - of course he doesn't understand yet that things can hurt him, so we try to keep the dishwasher door shut, but if we blink for a second, he's right there, pulling out little plates or silverware to hand us. He frequently pulls the tied-off garbage bags down the hall from the kitchen to the garage door where Scott's waiting to put them in the bins. If I'm doing laundry, he actually starts crying if I don't let him help. I put the laundry basket on top of the dryer and pick Thomas up, then he leans over from my arms and pulls the dirty clothes out of the basket and drops them into the open washer. When the laundry's done washing, I drop the wet clothes on the dryer door and let Thomas raise the door to make the clothes fall into the dryer. Then when the dryer's done, Thomas helps pull the clean stuff out and drops it back into the basket. He thinks it's all a game!

Finally, the stats: At his one-year checkup, Thomas measured 30 1/2 inches and weighed 26 lbs. In layman's terms, the boy is perfectly proportional, but HUGE for his age. He's as large as most of the kids in his daycare class, some of whom are many months older. He also is currently wearing size 5 1/2 shoes. Again - HUGE! Genetics in action! As a side note, Thomas has sixteen (yep, 16!) teeth, all the way to his first molars. Don't believe me? Stick your finger in there - I dare ya!

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