Thirteen Months

   My-oh-my, what a little mover!  Photographing a 13 month baby is so much harder than photographing a 12 1/2 month baby.  She has completely given up crawling and is walking everywhere.  It seems like walking has doubled her energy.  She can't sit still any longer, which means no reading, no cuddling and no high-chairs.  She's fearless and indestructible.  She wants to run, but doesn't quite have walking down, so she takes a lot of tumbles, but she never cries.  She always gets back up to try it again.  She loves slides, swings and stairs.  I'm already having a hard time catching her at this pace, I fear a little for the time when she learns to run.

   Despite not cuddling, she seems to have become more affectionate.  She's learned how to make kissing noises, give hugs and blow kisses, and she hands them out like candy on the Fourth of July.  She usually gives kisses when you ask for them, and she loves to give her animals hugs and kisses, too.  Sometimes she'll even offer up a few kisses, completely unsolicited.

   She loves to play games and invent new ones.  Some of her favorites are hiding in boxes, playing peekaboo and getting squished between me and the couch.
   David and I seem to have worked out a good bedtime routine.  We give her a bath, read her The Big Red Barn (with David cleverly executing every animal noise),  put on her jammies, sing a song, lay her down, say her prayers and leave her with a lullaby playing.  This was working well enough that we could get her to sleep without a single tear, so we decided to start taking her pacifier away at night.  Now she absolutely loathes bedtime.  The moment she sees one of us holding her book, she throws a royal fit, so we have to skip all the fun stuff and just leave her in her crib until she cries herself to sleep.  It breaks my heart, because singing to her before bed is my favorite time of the day, but I'm afraid if I give her paci back at this point, she will just depend on it more.  Eventually, when she gets used to sleeping without it, we will take it away at nap-time, then in the car, too.  Here's praying that she comes to terms with it soon...
  She's still as social as ever.  She loves Sundays when she gets to see her Sunday-school friends, and lights up whenever she sees her buddy in the morning.  It's so much fun to watch them play peekaboo together and share their toys with one another.  She still loves to go on walks, go shopping, watch us when we play Ultimate Frisbee, and visit the Alexandria boardwalk.

  I'm really looking forward to being able to introduce her to more activities.   Finger-painting and Simon-says are the big ones.  I'm not sure if she's quite there yet, but there's no harm in trying until she gets it.

Cool stuff she can do:

stack 2 blocks

stack rings

walk

climb up and down stairs

go down slides

roll a ball

blow kisses

draw with chalk

pull on hats, necklaces, shirts and bracelets

Favorites:

tomatoes of every variety

eating grape tomatoes straight off the vine

cottage cheese

playing Squish

doggies

musical pull-horse

classical and alternative music

playgrounds

Tooth Count:

still working on #5 + 6 (slowly)

Words she can say (and mean it):

Hi

Mama

5 Months

See my new skirt?

I'm watching you, Sophie...

The little Princess, looking over her kingdom.

Guitar solo!

The Little is not just an infant anymore, she's a real Baby!  Before she was born, five months seemed so old and so far away, but we're already here!  She's traded in so many aspects of her infancy.  She has replaced her slender figure with soft and delicious little rolls of fat.  She no longer needs to be snuggled to sleep, but will go to sleep on her own once we kiss her good-night.  She can entertain herself with almost anything without any help.
We recently started using Parent Directed Feeding, which keeps your baby on a constant rotation of eat-play-sleep.  Now she naps for 15 minutes before every feeding, and seems a lot happier lately.  She also goes to sleep easier, I think because she knows that's the expectation.
We finally moved her crib out of our room this week and into the living room.  I'm hoping that she'll sleep longer during the night without us around to disturb her sleep.
She loves to touch everything, and inspect things with her hands.  She always wakes me up in the morning by touching my lips and my nose, and when I open my eyes I see a very inquisitive little face looking back at me.  If you give her toys, she'll whip them around in the air until they fly off into the distance, then she'll marvel at her little hands wondering where her toys went.  She likes to inspect everything from mirrors and windows, to the carpet, couch upholstery and bedsheets.
While most of her jabber still consists of lip buzzing, she is slowly building up her repertoire of sounds.  Just this morning she looked over at David and started shouting, "Dadadadadadadadada!"  You might say it's coincidence, but I'm pretty sure I've got my very own child genius.
I'm starting to make this a little too long, but there's still so much to say!  So bear with me, because Little is about to start CRAWLING.  eek!  Last night, David and I watched as she pushed her chest up off of the floor and spun in a circle trying to play with every toy within arm's reach.  My heart jumped out of my chest, partly from pride and partly from fear because we haven't BABYPROOFED yet! Again, eek!(!!!!)  This is especially scary because only two days ago, she couldn't even do half a push-up, now she's a baby yoga master!  Lord, help me!
She's also eating cereal now, and that's so entertaining, it might even warrant it's own post.
Her favorite things this month include bouncing (especially to the tune of "Prim, Prim, Prim"), being tossed in the air, watching Mommy dance, hearing Mommy sing gospel choir songs, kisses, Peekaboo, being naked, having her fingers and toes nibbled on, and sponge-baths.
And her least favorite thing this month is pooping.

 

P.S.  Congratulations to my favorite Baby Blogger, Melissa.  She's having more!!!!  Yay!  http://dearbabyblog.com/post/2083026766/dear-everyone-this-is-a-letter-from-us-there#disqus_thread