As of last weekend, Emily is in the final countdown to her first birthday! She is growing up and learning new things every single day.
As of today, her repertoire of tricks includes:
waving and say bye bye
throwing her arms over her head when you say "touchdown"
saying Mama, Dada, tickle tickle and Hi (clearly). She mimics alot of other things as well, but you kind of have to use your imagination to make them sound like English.
She has 6 teeth and another one coming in any day now. Her eyes are still bright blue, as you can see from her pictures. We definitely get some questions about that we people see her with her brunette, brown eyed parents. I think I will just start saying that we bought her on the internet and they were all sold out of brown eyed kids.
She weighs right at 20 pounds and is wearing 12 month clothing. I am so excited for the "1 year and 20 lbs" milestone that means I can turn her carseat forward facing. I know the recommendation now is to wait as long as possible before turning them around, and I will give it a bit more time, but I have to admit that it is not easy to get her big self in and out of that carseat when it is in the middle of the backseat.
Eating is a bit of a challenge at this point in time. She doesn't really want the pureed baby foods, but she also isn't big on the "real" food we offer her either. She eats a lot of cheerios!
Her stomach has been a mess the past few days too. I know this is gross to write about, and please skip ahead if you need to, but I want to remember EVERYTHING about our first year with her. Honestly though, I don't think I could forget this scenario! The past two mornings, Emily has woken up in a puddle of her own poop. Not sure what is going on with her tummy - there is something going around her daycare, but she seems fine all day long. It has just been night time when the poop monster attacks! So as a result, she has begun the past two days with early morning baths! And we are cleaning, cleaning, cleaning everything she touches. Just before I sat down to write this, we looked at the monitor and noticed that she had thrown up in her bed. So yeah, this has been memorable!
Now for a change of subject!
Her most exciting skill by far has been the walking attempts. She has done a maximum of 4 or 5 steps at a time, but she is getting better each day! She really wants to walk - you can see those little wheels in her head turning as she decides if she should just walk somewhere or drop down and crawl. She is a speedy little crawler, too, so I understand why she chooses that method most! When she wants to get somewhere fast, she lowers her head and GOES.
She loves to climb stairs - any stairs, all the stairs, as much as you will let her. We have ours outside the "baby gate area" so she can't climb them, but she will occasionally stand at the gate and whine and try to stick her foot through to get to the bottom stair. She is really good at going up the stairs, but she wants to come down face first and that doesn't really work. We are working on teaching her to "sit on her bum" to come down.
Her monthly photo shoot was a short one this month. I have to admit, I like having the photos to compare her growth, but the actual taking of the pictures has become a bit of a pain in the rear.
Only one more month to go though! I am sure I will be complaining about missing it when we are done.
