13 1/2 month update

A snapshot of Amanda at 13½ months...
She runs around like crazy, and has the scraped knees to prove it! ~ She is finally signing...lots of "more", and she seems to be learning lots of others, like "milk", "water", and "all done". ~ She talks up a storm, babbling away mostly incoherently to everyone and everything. ~ She says a few words, like "dog", "duck", and something that sounds very much like "what's that?", but they're still pretty hard to understand. ~ Wherever we take her, she makes lots of new friends and does lots of flirting! ~ She adores her inflatable pool, and the splash pool near our house. ~ She is getting much harder to deal with at church, since all she wants to do is talk and run around! ~ She desperately needs another haircut! ~ She loves to ride in her carrier on Daddy's bike. ~ She is a great eater...we haven't yet found a single food she refuses to eat. ~ After a shaky start, she also loves her cow's milk in a sippy cup. ~ She is having a great time hanging out with her Dad all summer. ~ She can put the stars on her stacker, but not yet in the right order. ~ She will sometimes point to objects in her books when we ask her to ("where's the duck?") ~ She is starting to figure out how to climb on the furniture. ~ Her first top tooth finally came in a week ago, and it looks like the second one is part-way through as well. ~ She loves dogs, but is still a bit shy around them. ~ She hates to have anyone look inside her mouth, which makes checking for new teeth very difficult! ~ She can sit on her hippo, and knows it's supposed to go, but can't quite make it happen yet. ~ She has done great with the transition to Mom returning to work...and she rushes to the door to greet her with a big smile at the end of the day. ~ Whenever music starts (and sometimes even when it doesn't!) she starts bouncing up and down and dancing. ~ She loves to smile at herself and sometimes even "kiss" herself in the mirror. ~ She follows simple commands, like "bring me your water cup" or "come over here and we'll put your shoes on". ~ She sleeps really well but wakes up really early. ~ If we hold out our arms, she will run to us and give us a big hug. ~ We are so totally, crazily in love with her that it makes us ache.

We have a one year old!

It's official...we are parents of a toddler! Not only did Amanda turn 1 year old on June 12th, but she is walking around like crazy! As usual, our girl was pretty cautious in learning this new skill...she took her time, slowly progressing from 1-2 steps in mid-May, to 5-6 steps by the end of May, and finally to walking as far as she wants with confidence a few days before her birthday. Along with her newfound mobility, Amanda is getting more curious about everything (i.e., is into everything!) and is also testing her independence a bit, watching us to see how react when she's doing something she knows she's not supposed to do. She finally broke the 20 lb barrier - hooray! OK, well she's exactly 20 lbs, but that's all right. At least she is gaining weight. She is eating table foods almost exclusively now and has tried just about everything, other than nuts. She loves to eat scrambled eggs for breakfast and she seems to be especially fond of pasta. She has also tried Pirate Paks from White Spot, twice! - a grilled cheese sandwich and macaroni and cheese (both were bit hits). Believe it or not, she still has only two teeth, although the top teeth seem to be bothering her a great deal. In the past, she's only had significant teething pain at night, but now it bothers her a lot during the day as well. We hope those teeth will be coming in soon! She is still sleeping very well, through the night most nights...we've had a few wake-ups due to teething pain, but she is quickly soothed so it's not so bad. She is not quite saying any "real" words, although she babbles a ton and it sounds like she is speaking her own special language, complete with proper inflections. We joke that she is actually fluent in Russian, because if we ask her a question she often says "DA!" - not gently, like she used to, but very emphatically, like she is trying to tell us something very important! She loves music and will dance happily to whatever is playing or whatever silly tune we are singing. She also loves books, although so far she is mostly interested in turning the pages rather than hearing the story. All in all, she is a happy, energetic, goofy little girl and we love her to bits. It is amazing to watch her personality unfold as she grows.

11 month update

We can't believe that in only one month, our little baby will be a year old! This month Amanda has really increased her mobility. Her favourite thing is to cruise around, and around, and around the living room and upstairs hallway, holding on to the furniture or walls. She also loves to be in the kitchen (which can be kind of irritating!) and throws the plastic containers all over the floor on a regular basis. She can stand on her own now, although she doesn't realize it yet - she will occasionally do it by accident, but then when she realizes she's not holding on, she clutches at whatever is in front of her! She is also an excellent walker, but not quite on her own yet. She can walk with her toy walkers, or holding on to a finger (even just a single finger). We think she will probably be walking on her own in the next week or two, but our guess is definitely by her birthday. She has now progressed to mostly table foods. She still has baby cereal, fruit, and yogurt for breakfast (to help keep her iron up), but eats lots of "big people" foods at her other meals. She loves the little fruity yogurt cups and is still crazy about her Baby Mum-Mum crackers. And banana is our secret weapon - even if she acts full (after having a really tiny meal), we can usually get her to eat a whole banana afterwards! And she will eat anything mixed with banana (even ground beef - yuck! That's one of Daddy's concoctions). We are still a bit concerned about her weight - she lost a bit more this month, although mid-month weighings showed that she actually had dipped down well below 19 lbs, so at least she has regained from that. The doctor isn't too worried, but we're trying to make sure she gets lots of food in her at every feeding. We are going ahead with introducing most foods now, although we will still wait on eggs, honey, and milk until one year, and nuts until at least 18 months. Her second tooth finally came in - after 3 weeks of teething! - so now she has a matched set on the bottom. After only a few days of respite (i.e., improved sleep), she started teething on the next ones, although we haven't figured out yet which ones will be next (it looks like she may even get another bottom tooth before the top ones? Who knows). The good news: if given ibuprofen in the evening to deal with the teething pain, Amanda will now give us full nights of sleep fairly regularly - usually 10-12 hours. Hooray!!

10 month update

This has been quite a difficult month. Jeff was away for two weeks, chaperoning a school trip to Europe, and during that time Amanda got a terrible cold. (She had a cold when she was about 3 months as well, but this one was much worse). It has been almost two weeks now and she is finally showing signs of improvement, after several days on antibiotics to treat chest congestion. Because she lost her appetite while sick, Amanda actually lost weight this month, pushing her down to the 36th percentile for weight! She is starting to lose a lot of her cute baby fat! She has also been very mobile this month, which is contributing to her weight loss as well. We're sure that now her appetite is returning, she will gain the weight back quickly. Amanda has also started feeding herself lots of finger foods this month...she finally seems to have made the hand-mouth connection! She loves Cheerios, rice rusks, small pieces of meat, and cooked veggies. She is really enjoying her newfound mobility...she loves to crawl and cruise around the entire upstairs. Of course this means more work for Mom & Dad! She is still using the modified "Quasimodo crawl", and we think she will just stick with this since she seems much more interested in walking. She hasn't said anything that we would consider a "first word", but she seems to be quite close to saying a few words - especially "kitty", since she loves the cats at Grandma & Grandpa's house! She talks all the time and has lots of inflection in her voice, so it sounds just like she is speaking, even though we can't understand the words yet. Her sleeping has gone off track a bit in the past couple of weeks due to her illness, but she seems to be improving (finally!). We still have only one tooth, although the matching one is right below the surface. She has been teething on this one for at least two weeks now, complete with lots of drooling, chewing, and pain...hopefully all the teeth won't take this long or be this difficult in coming in! This month we also found a great daycare that it looks like we will be sending Amanda to in September (she will be home with Jeff over the summer). It feels good to know that she will be well-taken care of... one less thing to worry about!

9 month update

It is hard to believe that Amanda has now been alive "outside" for as long as she was alive "inside"! This has been a very big month in terms of milestones. It's now a race to see whether Amanda will crawl or walk first! She has just started doing a modified crawl in which she moves forward on her hands, dragging her legs behind her (we call her Quasimodo!). But mostly she just uses this as a means towards getting to the furniture so she can pull herself up...she really wants to be standing all the time. She has become very adept at pulling up on almost anything, even just a knee! She has just started cruising on the furniture, and will "walk" for quite aways with someone holding onto her hands. She can also stand unassisted for several seconds at a time before toppling over! This month Mandy finally got her first tooth - one of the bottom front ones. We had a few very sleepless nights, but otherwise it was relatively painless for her and for us! So far she only has the one tooth, so she will have a very cute lopsided grin for awhile until its partner comes in. Amanda continues to be a very vocal baby - she has almost got "mama" and "dada" down, using them mostly for the appropriate person. We have added lots of new foods to her diet, and she continues to enjoy eating solid foods, although her appetite changes greatly from day to day. We've started her on some finger foods, but she's not that interested...everything else the girl touches goes directly into her mouth, but when we actually give her FOOD, she looks at us like "what the heck am I supposed to do with this?". She does love the rice rusk teething biscuits - the only thing she will consistently feed herself. We have finally made some headway in our ongoing sleep issues...we are attempting to convince her to go to sleep on her own (without nursing to sleep), while avoiding "crying it out". Although it's been a struggle, it is working very well. After only a couple of nights, we have gone from 3-4 night wakings (with much difficulty going back to sleep) to only one after 7-9 hours of sleep (sometimes she goes right back to sleep, sometimes not). It is encouraging to finally see some progress!