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| Blake Christopher Morton, just a few minutes old! |
Body
When Blake was born Brian and I were honestly surprised that he was a huge 8 pounds 10 oz in weight and 22 inches in length. A year later at his 12 month doctor’s appointment, Blake weighed 25 pounds 10 oz and measured 32 ¼ inches in height. In the last year, Blake has grown 13 pounds heavier and 10 inches in length. He’s certainly not my “little” baby anymore!  |
| 1 month old and as big as his Christmas stocking |
Face
Blake was born with brown eyes, one adorable dimple on his left cheek, and an incredibly sweet face. Those handsome eyes stayed brown but have darkened some. As a photographer commented to me recently, Blake "smiles with his eyes" because you can see how happy is just by looking him in the eye without even moving his mouth at all. At 4 weeks old, Blake began smiling (with his eyes and mouth) and has not stopped smiling since! With that smile, Blake’s dimple became even more pronounced and noticeable. There’s very few things as cute as seeing Blake’s tooth-filled smile. Since his birth, he has 8 teeth have come in (the top front 4 and bottom front 4) and now the top left molar is currently coming in. Blake’s smile starting becoming full of teeth with his first one at the early age of 4 ½ months old. Those bright eyes and that contagious smile make me smile even my worst day. I love that little boy’s face!  |
| 2 months and getting bigger! |
Hair
Our little Italian boy was born with some dark brown hair on his head. This is not something that surprised us as Brian has dark brown hair too, and we both are of Italian ancestry. These days the color seems to be getting a little lighter and even redder although it is still very dark and Italian looking. At around 6 months old, Blake’s hair started growing out a lot more and becoming wavy and then suddenly curly. Now at a year old, Blake has adorable curly hair that people are always commenting on. Although Brian and Dominic have straight hair, I have very curly hair myself as well as the rest of my family, as do Brian’s sisters and mom. Honestly, we were a little surprised that Dominic ended up having straight hair, so it’s not a shock that Blake has curls and certainly makes him even more adorable if that’s possible. He hasn’t needed to get his first haircut yet thanks to the curls, but when it’s wet, it’s getting quite long, so that photo op is on the horizon...and no buzz cuts on that handsome curly hair!  |
| 3 months and showing off his smirk |
Sleep
When Blake was born he only slept for about 3 hours at a time. At first he had his days and nights mixed up, but we were pretty familiar with that concept from when his big brother was born, so we quickly flipped that around. We think it was Blake’s size in addition to us actually knowing what we were doing better the 2nd time around that helped him become an excellent sleeper very early on. He was consistently sleeping through the night (midnight to 5am) at 2 ½ weeks old, 8 hours per night at 7 weeks, and 11 hours a night at 9 weeks (straight sleep; no dream feedings, etc.). Almost a year later, Blake continues to be an amazing sleeper. Since being 9 weeks old, he has only woken up in the middle of the night a few times even during the dreaded teething. These days Blake typically sleeps 12 hours at night and takes 2 naps a day. I keep his morning nap around 30 minutes, so he takes a longer afternoon nap. That afternoon nap ends up being about 2 to 3 hours long. I’m hoping he officially drops his morning nap soon. We are extremely thankful that Blake was and continues to be the champion sleeper that he is. |
| 4 months old...and so happy! |
Eating
Blake was born a great eater (again probably because he was a big kid to start with). He ate every 3 hours or so the first couple of weeks, so about 8 times a day. 12 months later, Blake only eats 4 meals a day (breakfast solids + milk, lunch solids + milk, dinner solids, and bedtime bottle). He has been fed breastmilk almost exclusively for the first 5 ½ months of his life until he started solids. He continues to only drink breastmilk but has had a few ounces of cow’s milk recently too. Blake’s first solid food was oatmeal cereal which he didn’t love at first bite (or sip) but gobbled the whole bowl and has continued to eat most everything we give him ever since. He pretty much eats anything and everything we give him. Blake prefers fruits like bananas and apples but he also likes vegetables (squash, peas, and sweet potatoes) and meat (like chicken and turkey). At his 1 year checkup, the doctor noticed that Blake’s skin was looking a little orange/yellow from the beta carotene in all of the sweet potatoes, squash, and carrots that he loves to eat. Thickness of food appears to be the biggest challenge with food that we encounter with our 1 year old. Due to an extremely sensitive gag reflex, things like applesauce cause him to gag more easily than most kids and he ends up regurgitating. This has made his progression with finger foods move a little slowly, but Blake likes Cheerios, peas, Mums Mums, Wagon Wheel snacks, Puffs, bread, crackers, and pancakes.  |
| 5 months old! |
"Tricks"
When Blake was first born, he obviously didn’t do a lot of moving around. He mainly just slept, ate, and put his diapers to use. At 7 months old Blake started crawling (mostly after his big brother) and has been on the move ever since! He gets around very quickly - too quickly for me at times. Blake is in the phase where he always has to be on the move, or he is not happy. These days, he’s cruising all over the place, standing on his own, and walking more and more. Blake took his first unassisted step when he was 11 months old and is still working on perfecting his walking although he seems to prefer crawling. He’s also clapping, which he is very proud of himself for, pointing, and waving. Blake is learning new “tricks” all of the time, and it’s so fun to experiencing this with him!  |
| 6 months and making me fall more in love every time he laughs! |
Diapers
Blake only briefly wore Newborn diapers as a baby - for a total of about 2 weeks I think. He is now wearing Size 4-5 diapers. At Blake’s 1 month checkup, I remember voicing our concern to the pediatrician that Blake only had a dirty diaper every other day or so (in contrast to Dominic who had a dirty diaper every time he ate at that age). This could have been a result of Blake being on Prevacid for his reflux (on it since his first day of life till he was around 6-7 months old). I started Blake on Culturelle, which got things more regular, but ever since Blake got off of the Prevacid he has 3-4 dirty diapers a day...without the Culturelle he has even more! We certainly go through the diapers these days in this house!  |
| 7 months. Love that smile!! |
Speech
Blake has spent his first year being a mostly quiet child. Until he was about 9 months old, Blake’s never been much of a crier unless he’s hungry, tired, or lonely. He didn’t really start babbling much until he was around 8 months old but once he did he started babbling a ton and loving it. Now he is all about repeating so many of the sounds that he hears us say. He loves to say, “Yeah, yeah, yeah.” Blake says, “Uh oh” whenever he drops something and “Ch” for Cheerios (his favorite food), “Hi!”, “Dada.” Still no sign of him saying, “Mama” though. He also enjoys saying, “I see you,” when he wants to play peek-a-boo while he hides under a blanket. This is his favorite game. Additionally, Blake seems to be understanding some of what we say. He stops when we tell him no (how long will that last?), claps when we ask him to, and does other little things like that. Blake gestures like pointing and waving hi (as he says it, demonstrating that his language is developing. These days Blake is at a tough age where he screams if we take something away from him (such a bummer when Mommy takes the dangerous objects away from you, isn’t it?), and he also makes a similar noise out of joy. We’re working on bringing those sounds down a few notches but otherwise we can’t wait to hear what Blake says next!  |
| 8 months and oh, so sweet! |
Schedule
Blake was basically born on a schedule or at least he was super easy to train. This was one of the earliest schedules for him (around 11 weeks):
8:30am - Wake up
9:00am - Eat
10:30am - Nap
12:00pm - Eat
1:00pm - Nap
3:00pm - Eat
4:00pm - Nap
6:00pm - Eat
6:30pm - Cat Nap (30 min - 1 hour)
9:00pm - Eat
9:30pm - Bedtime!
Now this is Blake’s current schedule:
8:00am - Wake up
8:45am - Breakfast (milk and then solids)
9:30am - Nap (30 min)
12:30pm - Lunch (milk and then solids)
1:30pm - Nap (2-3 hours)
6:00pm - Dinner (just solids)
7:30pm - Bath and Bedtime bottle
8:00pm - Bedtime!
The schedules actually don’t look that different, but with the addition of solids, fewer feedings, and fewer naps.
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| 9 months and looking huge |
Personality
Since Day 1 Blake has been a very quiet, laid-back baby. He started smiling within a month and has been an extremely social person ever since. We attribute it to the fact that he’s the 2nd child and never has a moment alone (not that that’s a bad thing). Blake is used to always having at least Dominic around to play with and has always been content as long as someone else is around. All babies go through separation anxiety from their moms, but Blake actually went through a period of separation anxiety from not just me but also from Dominic. There were a couple of nights where Blake had huge meltdowns (very uncharacteristic for him) after Dominic went to bed and I was out for the night. Although it was very sad for Blake to suffer, it was also adorable that he has such a deep bond with his big brother. Dominic is absolutely Blake’s favorite person in the world and the feeling is pretty mutual. Blake laughs at whatever his big brother says or does and has followed him around ever since Blake could crawl. These days he likes to play with whatever Dominic plays with too.  |
| 10 months and not looking like a baby anymore. :( |
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| 11 months and no longer willing to sit for the picture. |
It's always interesting to think about what a difference a year makes especially to a sweet baby. Blake has grown and changed in so many ways, and more than anything he has truly touched and changed our family with his addition. Before Blake was born, I honestly really worried so much about how his Dominic would be affected by this momentous change, but nothing has made me happier my whole entire life than seeing our two children play with, care about, and love each other the way these brothers do. Having 2 little boys can be really very challenging sometimes, but Blake's smile and laugh make it all more than worth it. Happy 1st Birthday, Blakey!! We love you more than you will ever know!! :)
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| 1 Year Old!!! 1 year complete in a blink of an eye. |
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