Sprout is Thirteen Months Old!

Today Sprout is Thirteen Months Old!

Okay, so she's not thirteen months old today, but going on ten days ago... I did actually take her photo on the 24th, but the writing, well it just didn't happen until a few days ago, and the posting, well that's just happening now.  It's been busy here, I suppose.

What an amazing difference a year makes!  Last year we were just getting to know our daughter.  Soaking in all her lovely newborn-ness.  Trying to figure out ourselves as a family of four and now... well now we cannot imagine our family any other way.  We have two increasingly-active children who are so wonderful and bring us so much joy, and who happily seem to adore one another.  That makes us happier than anything.

-This month Sprout decided it was time to start walking in earnest.  She took her first unassisted step, and then two, and then three... and now she's walking across the room.  Still a little unsteady, but fiercely determined!  This girl has places to go and has decided that walking is how she's going to get there!

-Next: talking.  She's quite a little chatterbox these days.  She added the phrase "ni ni" (night night) into her vocabulary.  I was floored one evening when I was nursing her, and she unlatched looked and me and said it --clearly meaning "I am done nursing now.  Rock me night night."  So I did.  I mean, that's what you do when your kid makes a request like that, right?  She now says night night pretty much every time she's going to sleep and when she's being silly and putting her head down pretending to sleep.  She says "bye bye".  And also "eyes" and "nose" and she even can point to them pretty accurately, along with her belly.  She sometimes finds her mouth, ears, hair/head, hands and feet.  She says her brother's name.  And I swear she has copied me saying some pretty amazing words like "alligator."  (Jen didn't believe me either, but then Sprout said it for her.)

-Along with walking she is climbing everything.  Totally dangerous in our not-so-baby-proof house.  She's fallen many times but never walked away with more than a bump, thank goodness.

-This month she has gotten really into books.  She will pick one she wants and bring it over to either me or Jen, often crawling her way into our laps while we read to her.  (Yes, we love it.)  Her favourites seem to be interactive books (touch and feel, lift the flap, and the like --Dear Zoo and Where Is Baby's Belly Button come to mind).  She likes to turn the pages really quickly.

-Her favourite toys are balls, the tunnel and ride on toys.  Nothing new there really.

-No big change on the eating front.  We're into a pretty regular breakfast routine now, where she eats her rice cereal while me and The Bean eat our breakfasts.  She often demands that we share cereal with her.  I don't love that she's eating Cheerios and Honeycombs, but it could be worse.  She's getting pretty good with finger foods now and will often have little bites of our meals --veggies, fish, etc.

-Unfortunately there hasn't been any big change on the sleep front either.  We had gotten her on a bit of a better overnight schedule, but then Jen went away and it went back to where it had been or worse maybe.  We're still working on it.

-We had her twelve month check up earlier in January.  She hardly gained any weight since her 9 month check (21.9lbs to 22.1lbs), but had grown two inches (now 30.9in).  I believe that puts her around 84th percentile for weight and 93rd for height.  I find it interesting that our two kids are on such opposite ends of the spectrum (though both seem to be averaging out ever so slightly).

And, I guess those are the big updates.  I love this age and look forward to the next few months as she continues to expand her ability to communicate and otherwise navigate her way through the world.  And of course, we just love her, no matter what age or stage she is at.