Bye-Bye, Baby

It's now March and by the time the month is out, Bryce will celebrate his first birthday. As cliche as it sounds, the year has flown by! I have so many little things to record about him that I thought it warranted his own post. (I still need to blog about our trip to Texas, but I've discovered that when you go on vacation you don't come back and pick up right where you left off, you come back and pick up a week behind, so Texas will be coming soon...)
Bryce is getting much better with his walking. He likes to cruise around the house from one object to another. I don't think it will be long before he gathers up the courage to let go and walk on his own. Mostly he'll only walk independently to me - if I try to get him to walk another direction he just spins back to me. Here's a video we took about a week ago of him starting to walk. He's gotten better since then.

I think he gave up on conventional crawling and came up with his own hybrid of scooting/crawling that works well enough for his purposes:

Other items of note:
* Bryce hates getting in his car seat and getting his diaper changed. Unfortunately (for him), both of those are completely non-negotiable. Without fail, he makes his dislike abundantly clear (I often have to hold him down with my shoulder so I can buckle him in his car-seat), but thankfully once he's strapped in or after a few seconds on the changing table, he calms down and resigns himself to his fate.
* Bryce learned his second sign - "All done." He can also almost say the phrase, although it sounds more like "Ah-duh." He seems really excited to be learning to communicate and it's amazing to see his eyes light up when he says a word and I "get it."
* While we were in Texas Kira asked permission to give Bryce a faux-hawk (because his hair was so long). I thought she would do it one night before a bath, so I said, "Sure." The next morning I stepped out for a minute and returned to find my son punked-out. He spent the day site-seeing in San Antonio sporting his oh-so-cool hair-style and got quite a few comments from strangers about how cute he looked.
* Since Bryce was obviously over-due for a haircut, we chopped it (again!) this last week. I think that makes haircut #8.
* Little boys are certainly different from little girls. In fact, a friend (who has 3, almost 4 little boys) stopped me in the hall today at church to comment (revel?) on the fact (I think he thinks we got off easy with Aubree). Bryce is constantly making noise. He can't stay in sacrament meeting because he's always jabbering loudly. The other day he was playing with a toy car and I noticed he was making "vrooom, vrrooom" sounds as he "drove" the car around himself. What?! I didn't teach him that. Even as a 3-year old Aubree never makes car sounds. Cool.
*Bryce has discovered his finger-holder, I mean, his nose.
* It took almost week, but by the end of our Texas trip, Bryce was happy and content to be held by his Grandma and Aunts.
* Since he was about six weeks old, Bryce "clicks-off" at 6:30 pm. At that time he's ready to go to bed and his bedtime routine has become blessedly simple. Put on his pajamas, nurse, lay him in his crib, the end. He usually wakes up around 5 am, nurses, then goes back to sleep for another hour or two when he "clicks back on" at 6:30 am. Aubree loved to cuddle in bed with me, Bryce prefers to sleep in his own bed.
* Bryce's most favorite toy in Texas was a yo-yo. *Shrug*
* While on vacation Bryce learned how to stand up in his crib. I know this is typical and Bryce is perhaps even behind-the-curve, but I have to admit this is not a skill I look forward to my kids learning. It seems that once they figure out they can stand, then they'd rather stand than sleep. Last night, for example, Bryce uncharacteristically cried out twice and both times I found him standing, bleary-eyed, unsure of what to do now that he was upright. That being said, I do find it ridiculously adorable when I go to get him in the morning or after a nap and open the door to see him standing and grinning at me. Which reminds me - one of his top teeth came in. Where's the other one?