The story of Armani Osbaldo Feliciano
Armani was born on March 17, 2006 in West Chester, PA. Armani is my St. Patrick’s Day baby and while having his birthday on St. Patty’s day is fun for now, I know I will dread the fact that his birthday falls on St. Patty’s day once he becomes a young adult. Armani was a pretty big baby (9.4 pounds and 21.5 inches long) and is still a big boy for his age. Today at age three he often gets mistaken as a 4 or 5 year old and wears a size 5.
As a baby, I loved nursing Armani and rocking him to sleep on his blue-cloud Boppy pillow. He was such a good sleeper and really a pretty easy baby. At around 6 months, Armani started eating solid foods and up until his 2nd birthday Armani loved vegetables and sometimes would eat just veggies for a meal. Today, however, I’m lucky if I can get Armani to eat a very small bowl of corn or peas.
By 6 months of age, Armani could sit up all by himself, smile and laugh. Armani was such a happy baby. He just loved to smile and I think he loved all the attention he got when he did so. Around this age, Armani also started crawling and would stand and play in his exersaucer for hours.
When Armani was 8 ½ months old, he started walking and this is when parenting stepped in to high gear because we had to watch him constantly. There were many falls, most of them not serious, however two falls have been embedded in my mind. One particularly bad fall was along the fireplace’s brick edge (we covered the edges with foam but he kept pulling the foam off). With this fall he got a nice cut/bump on his forehead and we had a nice trip to the doctor. Another particularly bad fall was when he fell face/mouth first on a wooden waste basket in the bathroom, which pushed his front tooth back a bit (this tooth ended up having to be extracted when he was two).
When Armani was around a year old he was the very curious sort. He loved pushing buttons and opening drawers and cupboards. In fact, on our flight to Washington State to visit family, Armani found the one button on the plane that disabled XM radio to all passengers. Oh, he was quite a handful.
At 2 years old, Armani really started to understand words and his vocabulary accelerated at an unbelievable pace. I could ask him to find any object in a book, or any letter of the alphabet or any number between 1-20 and he could do so easily. He LOVED looking through books and LOVED to be read to. In fact, he still LOVES his books (this cannot be understated, he is definitely my little bookworm). Armani also loves puzzles and started putting together 3 year old puzzles at the age of 2. A weird quirk of Armani’s at this age (and actually continues to this day) is his infatuation with putting blankets over his head and running/walking around. Very dangerous! In fact, once everyone wakes up in the morning, I usually have to go into each bedroom and pull all the blankets off the beds and hide them. Yet, he always seems to find one and we end up having a tug-a-war over “his” blanket. I can’t tell you how many times he has walked into a wall with a blanket covering his head. At age two, Armani also started going to preschool and started becoming much more independent. He likes to hang up his jacket at school and put away his lunchbox. He also likes storytime and when coach Lesley visits on Tuesdays and of course he loves playing outside on the playground. He also likes handing out cups and napkins to his classmates during snacktime.
Armani is such a wonderful and affectionate child. He has never been aggressive, strange as that may be for a boy, plays nicely with his sister (has never hit her as far as I know), shares his toys and snacks with her, tries to comfort her when she’s upset and loves to hold her hand and follow her around. Armani also loves giving kisses and being hugged and my heart just melts everytime I see him displaying affection.
So now my handsome little man is 3 years old! I can’t believe it! These last three years have just flown by. If he follows in Maya’s footsteps (which he seems to be thus far) this year is going to be a big year for him (lots of milestones are coming)! Happy birthday, Armani!
One year later . . .
8 years ago
