And suddenly... there is only one sticker left. Where has the past year gone? Truthfully, sometimes it has not felt like it is flying by. I think the adage is true- "the days are long but the weeks/months are short". The first few months are really tough. Then it slowly starts getting more fun. Then, things start happening in rapid succession. Over the course of a few months, Abby learned to crawl, communicate ("doc!"), and began pulling to stand! I cannot wait to see what we are doing this time
next year! But... let's focus on the present:
Our beach vacation is around the corner and I could not be more excited. I have been looking forward to this for MONTHS. I'm especially excited because Abby and I get to go for an extended time, because I am able to work remotely. We will be celebrating her first birthday while we are there, and I am trying hard not to go overboard in the party planning department... It's difficult.
Oh- one quick thing. If you notice a scab on her nose in these pics you are not imagining it! Girlfriend learned the hard lesson that if you pick up one hand while crawling and use it to pick up a toy while continuing to move forward, you faceplant.
How many? 11!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Stats? She won't be weighed and measured for another month. But I think she's definitely gotten taller, and of course she's nice and chunky ;)
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| "Where's your belly button?" |
Diaper size? Wearing size 4 and comfortable.
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| Baby curls! |
Clothes size? She can still squeeze into some 9 month stuff but let's be honest- she's wearing 12 month clothes.
Eating? Our adventures in solid food continue. I'm less worried about choking and allergies now and more worried about her eating healthy food. I actually find myself buying organic stuff, which a year ago I would have rolled my eyes at. But I worry about her getting proper nutrition, especially when she doesn't eat a huge variety of food. We are working on that slowly! Typically she will eat a mini waffle or some cheerios in the morning accompanied by some fruit (banana or strawberries). For lunch I'll give her some turkey or chicken, with some cheese (she LOVES cheese), veggie and/or a fruit. Snack time is mini goldfish (they make them in baby size! I die.) or some other Gerber baby snack. Dinner can be yogurt, some combination of the lunch options, whatever we are eating (if appropriate), or sometimes I TRY to give her dinner from a spoon but 95% of the time she rejects it, hits the spoon, and splatters food everywhere.... I find that I am not as adventurous as other parents I see on Facebook giving their much younger kids things I am terrified of feeding Abby. But I am learning slowly! It is a learning process both for the parent and the child.
Also to note, she is down to 4 bottles a day (5 if she wakes up in the middle of the night). I'm going to start weaning her off the bottle very slowly and replacing one bottle per day with a sippy. She does great with the soft spout sippys but has trouble with the hard spout ones. Also, she usually rejects formula if it's in a sippy cup. Weirdo.
Sleeping? We have been dealing with night awakenings for the past month. I recently was able to identify the cause when she leaned her head back with her mouth open and I saw the molars that are beginning to pop through. We have been giving her a bottle which helps her go back to sleep. I'm not ready for the Ferber method, to be honest. And she does okay. This is usually a phase anyway, and she will go back to sleeping through the night. The past several nights she has actually gone back to sleep on her own, with the exception of paci- replacement. Something we will have to deal with soon is when to take away the pacifier. It's going to be rough, but necessary.
Nap times are getting much more consistent now that I'm working at home. She takes two naps per day- one in the late morning and one in the afternoon. And goes to bed between 7-8pm. She wakes up later now too- between 6-7 instead of 5-6 (thank goodness!!). Wake time is usually about ~3 hours, give or take. But she can rock for much longer than that. We are very lucky to have such a flexible babe. It makes vacations a breeze. And we've got two big ones coming up!
Teeth update: 4 on the bottom, 4 on the top (they are not 100% in yet but they are more than halfway), and MOLARS starting to poke through on either side on the top and the bottom. I have started brushing her teeth with a little baby toothbrush, and no toothpaste-just water. Just basically to get her used to the toothbrush. I doubt it's doing anything but it makes me feel better that her teeth won't rot out. I'm also holding back on the juice for as long as I can. She LOVES drinking water from the sippy (or my water bottle, or my cup) so I don't see a reason why I should give her anything other than formula and water ;).
Eye color update: Still blue. I can't believe it. They are bluish-grey and some days they are more blue, sometimes (like today, when it rains) they are grey, and sometimes when she wears green they look green. I'm not 100% convinced they are staying this blue, but I can say with some certainty that I don't think they will turn brown. How crazy!
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| I like this one because it shows the major difference between my eye color and hers. |
Milestones?
Kept another list this month for ya!
-She knows what to do when I ask her to "Take out your paci" or "Leave the paci here". (Step one of giving it up is only using it upstairs/in the crib.)
-One day we were sharing a banana and I asked her to show me her mouth to prove it was empty and ready for the next bite. I was shocked when she opened wide and stuck out her tongue. That was the beginning of this month and my realization that she understands MUCH more than I give her credit for.
-She knows where her belly button is, and will pull up her shirt to show it to you.
-She started rejecting being put in the jumperoo/walker/etc. If she doesn't want her legs forced into the little leg holes, she picks them up and bicycles in the air. It's frustrating but hilarious at the same time.
-About a week ago, I looked over at the pack n play and she was standing up. She had pulled up all by herself. Since then she's gotten quite good at pulling up on various things around the house. VERY exciting but also scary... walking is happening... soon!
-I was reading her a book called "Are you a cow?" and it asks if you are every kind of animal and you say "no" each time. I noticed Abby was shaking her head "no". I have no idea where she picked that up because it wasn't something we taught her!
-She was playing with my phone and started holding it to her ear, as if talking into it. Another shocker since I don't talk on my phone that much!
-She is OBSESSED with dogs. Every dog (or animal) is a "doc". She will point and yell DOC. When she sees a real dog, or a dog on TV, she yells "DOC" and pants like a dog. The other day, we were taking a walk and she was frantically yelling "Doc! Doc!". I looked around, saw nothing and told her "Abby, there is no doggie, honey." Well wouldn't you know, two seconds later a man walked around the corner with two dogs on leashes. I was flabbergasted. It's like she's the dog whisperer.
-Abby gives "hugs". Except her version of a hug is leaning her head over and touching you with her forehead. This is especially adorable when she hugs pictures of animals (mostly dogs...) in books.
-The last thing on my list was a few days ago when we went out to get the mail. We came back in the house and the dogs went nuts because they are stupid. I told them they needed to chill. And I swear Abby repeated me. Sounded like she tried to say "chill". I guess we better watch what we say.....
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| Giving me some attitude about this photo shoot. |
Mom's Corner:
Since the beach is around the corner, I've been working (not exactly working hard) on getting my beach bod ready and I am pretty pleased with the results. Taking Abby for daily walks, drinking more water and adding a short workout into my day have resulted in the loss of ~5 lbs. I'm not perfect but I'm more confident and ready to take on a couple weeks at the shore!!!
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| So over this photo shoot. |
I have plans for a post to summarize our summer so far (SUMMERize.. bahaha) and I will hopefully get around to doing that soon!!
Hope everyone had a great July 4th.
In other news, my 31st birthday is this weekend.. :-O
~SG
