My 12 Month Old (1 Year!!!)

Wow.

How can time go so fast and so slowly? It just doesn't seem possible that it's been a year since Little One's early arrival.

She's gone from IV's and bili lights to solid foods, walking(!) more than she crawls, and babbling away.

At her 12 month appointment she weighed 23 pounds, 2 ounces, and was 31" long. That's quite a difference from her statistics at arrival of 4 pounds, 6 ounces, and 18.5" long! And puts her at ~80%, and ~90% respectively. Unbelievable!!! Because of this, she's wearing mostly 18 months with some larger 12 month pieces. (If you'd asked me before she was born (both based on my sizing growing up and her estimated weight) I would have told you she'd just be going into 12 months around her birthday.) And because it's summer, she's rocking a lot of dresses with bloomers which make (the dreaded) diaper changes so much easier than dealing with layers of snaps or pulling shorts off and on of a spinning dervish. Diaper changes are one of the biggest challenges we face. Especially when extensive cleanup is necessary. There are just too many other excitingly important things to explore and interact with to lay still for something as silly as a diaper change. She's also rocking her first pair of shoes, a pair of Robeez called Pep Rally (or something like that).

Little One is now completely self weaned; the last time I offered and was refused was on her birthday, so it's all whole milk, water and juice along with black beans, apple sauce, yogurt, and almost anything else she can cram into her mouth. While there are still a few foods I can spoon feed her, the preferred entry method is her own fingers. She's started to offer and take back pieces of food, and seems to enjoy the process of learning to drink directly from a cup vs. a sippy or straw.

She is also down to one bottle: 50% diluted milk at bedtime. The pediatrician isn't worried about it, and it both makes sure she gets enough fluids and serves as a soothing transition to bed. The dilution rate will climb to more water, and once she's drinking more fluids during the day I plan to back off the amounts of both milk and total fluid until it's not worth it for her.

I'm happy to report that Little One is still taking 2 naps a day. The first I can count on to start around 2 hours after she gets up and lasts an hour to hour and a half on a good day. The second runs anywhere from 3-4 hours after she gets up from the first, and is usually shorter. About half the time it ends up being in the car. I know that's not great but we live between 20 and 30 minutes away from almost everywhere in town so if I want to combine errands to save gas it means we're in the car when she crashes and a shorter nap. Bedtime is pretty steadily between 6:30 and 7 with morning wake-up between 6 and 7, but usually closer to 6 (to my dismay).

I think this is it for the monthly updates on Little One. I hope to get back to posting more mundane things (you know, like how I'm doing, which currently = a bad case of baby fever) on a regular basis, but if you don't get enough here, you can track me down on Facebook or Twitter through my dummy email account: kiribitz at gmail dot com

And I will leave you with two recent pictures:


Shoes. Looking much more doubtful about them than she actually is.


And cake. Homemade carrot cake (no nuts) with cream cheese icing to celebrate her birthday. It was a hit all around!