This littlest baby turned 1 on Christmas Eve! It has been a whirlwind week, with her birthday party on Sunday and then Christmas preparations afterwards. In fact, we only opened one present on her actual birthday since the day was packed with last minute shopping, wrapping, and dinner out with friends. And I stayed up until 2 am the night before making her a birthday dress. Of which I have no pictures. We opened more birthday presents on Christmas, but she still has some Christmas presents that aren’t opened. Probably not too many more years where that will happen!
The day before her birthday baby C surprised us with a new tooth—making a total of 6. I think several more are just biding their time. She scoots quite fast, does a slower, more awkward crawl, and pulls up to her knees—hasn’t figure out standing yet. She squeals for music and does some spastic dancing—need video of that!—especially a song from music class called “Little Red Caboose”. Babbling is pretty much constant during waking hours now and she seems to think we are all having great conversations with her.
Still a fantastic sleeper taking two naps a day and a long nights sleep. I can actually put her awake into her crib and she falls asleep. This is a like a miracle…I always thought people were lying when they said their babies did this! She loves snuggling with her blanket and will sometimes crawl/scoot over to someone and just flopple on them for hugs. She is a very huggy baby. Hasn’t quite figured out giving kisses yet, but loves to be read a hugging and kissing book and getting kisses.
Baby C is playing with her toys with a lot more intentionality now—putting things in and out and trying to figure out how things work. She has taken a noticeable leap in her understanding in the past few weeks which has been neat to observe.
Although she clearly prefers to be held by G and I (often leaning for the other when one is holding her and then getting transferred back and forth) she will smile at strangers until she wins them over. During a recent dinner at Panera she smiled at one family until they were smitten, waving at her and complimenting her as they walked out. As soon as they were out of sight, she set her eyes on a new family and started smiling at them. I think she made her way through 3 or 4 families before we left.
We are completely off of purees for meals and she will happily eat just about anything—fish, chicken, cheese, eggs, vegetables of all sorts… She squeals for hummus, even spicy hummus. Loves raspberries and eating whatever everyone else is eating. Has tried Indian and Thai food and sushi (not raw). She also one hands her sippy cup to swill water during meals. Haven’t tried milk with her yet. Still figuring out spoon handling skills but we will get there.
In addition to the Hugging book mentioned, her favorites are Brown Bear Brown Bear, a series that has a little finger puppet in the middle, and the Usborne “That’s not my…” touchy feely series. And of course the classic Moo Baa La La La. She will happily page through books on her own but also loves settling in for a cozy book reading snuggle.
She is adored by her sisters but not necessarily coddled by them. It has been a struggle keeping M away from her toys (er, that ride on isn’t for 5 year olds!) and neither of them is very good about keeping track of tiny items and making sure they don’t stay on the floor.
Size wise…this is a substantial baby. Still nicely rounded with a baby gut and man boobs. The scale at home suggests she is around 23 lbs. which I believe is a good 4 lbs. over either of her sisters at this age. We don’t see the doctor until after the new year for her checkup and shots (another side effect to the holiday birthdate) so we’ll have final info then.
Closing with a few shots from Christmas Day…including what happens when you do mostly online shopping and have all out of town relatives mailing gifts to you (and recycling day the day after Christmas) and older sisters on their new roller skates.
