Ben at 12 months
*He's taking steps, but definately not walking around the living room yet. The most steps he's ever taken by himself in a row is six.
*He fake cries ALL THE TIME. For attention, of course. Really annoying to listen to when it continues on for more than a few fake cries.
*He says mama, dada, bye bye with a little wave, baba (pronounces his b's as d's most of the time), and my favorite, Uh-oh.
*If you say "Can I have a kiss?" prepare for the slobberiest kiss of your life. He gives you one every time you ask and makes a very good attempt at aiming for your lips, though not always hitting his target.
*He's going through the pointing at everything phase, which is really cute.
*A ball is his favorite toy in the world. Any ball that is big enough to bounce and smack your hand on.
*He's not afraid of ANYTHING. He loves loud noises, especially when he's the one who makes them. He chases the vacuum and smiles when Chris honks the horn when we're driving.
*His favorite solid foods are mini-corndogs and oreos. Healthy, I know. He still has issues eating solid food, but he's doing much better.
*He throws almost everything he gets his little hands on. The first thing he does when he wakes up in the morning is throw all of his toys out of his crib, saying "uh-oh" after every toy hits the floor. This is what I wake up to most mornings at 5am.
*He laughs A LOT, but mostly at what mama and daddy do. The hardest he ever laughs is when Chris tickles him with his beard. He also laughs at peek-a-boo.
*He loves to sleep, which is the only way I manage to get homework done. He takes a nap from around 11:30-1:00pm, then again from 4:30-7:00pm, then sleeps through the night 9:30-5:30am.
*He wears a size 4 shoe (perfect fit right now), 12-18 month clothes, and size 3 diapers.
*He drinks from sippy cups with soft lids. I gave him whole milk for the first time the other day and he LOVED it. It's great because I'll drink any kind of milk and formula is so expensive.
*We finally got to flip his carseat around. The first time he rode facing forward, I kept turning around and he was just STARING out the windshield, trying to understand what was going on. It was so funny.
*He doesn't try to flip over when I change his diaper or get him dressed anymore. I think he got in enough trouble that he finally learned to hold still.
*He tries really hard to imitate words that you say, and comes really close most of the time.
*He will carry things around in his mouth while crawling through the house.
*The things that he gets in trouble for everyday include playing with mama's laptop, trying to sneak into the kitchen, playing with the tv remotes and throwing them, playing with the toilet paper and the trashcan in the bathroom, pulling the cd out of his cd player in his room, and spitting out his food just because.
I'm waiting for Tiffany to post birthday pictures before I do a birthday party post.
I think this picture is hilarious. He didn't want to go down the slide by himself, but we made him anyway. He thoroughly enjoyed it, as you can tell. He went down so slow he stopped completely at the bottom of the slide. We probably caused some sort of slide phobia for him. 
This was the before picture. I did go down with him once and he actually enjoyed it.
Ben with his I heart my mom onesie on. I had to get in the picture to emphasize who his mom is, just in case you didn't know.
Ben's going to play tennis when he gets older. I think tennis is a very mom friendly sport to watch a child play because there's not a huge chance he'll get hurt.
The ball is bouncing in front of his face. He's not eating it. He chased the tennis balls around the court for a good while. I started to worry he was going to skin his elbows, so we had to stop. Chris was also getting fussy because he chased the tennis ball around a few times and got all tired from it.
When we were done playing tennis, we decided Ben needed some more walking practice. He does well when walking from one person to another, but still won't walk across a room by himself.
Ben always walks slower to Chris and then runs to me, which isn't good because I have to catch him before he does a face plant. He's not very coordinated and doesn't understand that mama isn't coordinated either, which means he'll probably end up doing a face plant one of these times. 
My future tennis player. He won't have pink tape on his future tennis racket.
Ben enjoyed the baby swings. He looks so funny with his legs dangling through the seat. He also looks like he gets tired when we're pushing him in the swing. I think it's because he's used to the baby swing we used to put him in to get him to sleep.
My sweet baby. We also got to witness a homeless man digging through the trash and a guy walking down the street with a business suitcase wearing a suit. It was an interesting day!
