EEK is so fitting...can it really have been 3 months since I last wrote? I would be a terrible professional blogger.
I was just reading her 11.5 month post and can't believe how much has changed. She is a expert walker now, although she still does that baby thing that I love where she looks intently in one direction and then her feet take her on a completely different path. Amazingly she manages to stay upright most of the time, and even when she does fall, she's pretty tough and doesn't squawk. She has been known to open the front door on her own and run down the driveway and across the street before I even know she's gone (thankfully Sam and Abi were out there when she went - which is probably why she went - she loves them!). Don't worry, Mom and Dad, we now keep the front door locked and that hasn't happened again. She does LOVE to be outside. "Si" is one of her many words. Em is my only child that patiently sits in my lap to put shoes and socks on ("tuh-toh" for toe-toes - ugh - what a ridiculous word, which only sounds cute when a 1-year old says it). And I'm certain the only reason she tolerates shoes and socks is because I won't let her go outside without them.
She is still pretty serious. When you get her to smile (with those gorgeous dimples!), it is a huge reward because you have to work for it! I have figured out a surefire way though - I hold out my hand with a Cheerio or similar treat in it and she reaches for it and then I close my hand really quick, grabbing her hand. This, as you all are aware, is HILARIOUS. We could literally do this for hours. The joke never gets old.
Em is also quite opinionated. Somehow, despite not having many actual adult words, she manages to convey exactly how she feels about pretty much everything. Food, for example. While string cheese was absolutely THE. MOST. DELICIOUS. FOOD. a couple of weeks ago, yesterday I apparently gravely insulted her by offering it. How do I know this? Well, Em is excellent at waving her hands around her highchair tray so that all undesirable contents go flying through the air and onto the floor. She has an uncanny ability to selectively choose the pieces she wants and discard the rest. I know in several years this will strike me as "adorable." For now, it is "messy" and "aggravating." A simple "all done" hand gesture would suffice.
Her favorite word right now is still "mo." As I wrote in my last post, this doesn't mean that she actually wants "more" of anything, just that she wants SOMETHING. Usually it's her drink. I am still trying to teach her sign language (the juice sign is pretty easy!), but, have I mentioned that she's fairly stubborn about things?
Other words in her vocabulary include: hi!, buh-bye, dog, mama, dada, boat, "tuh" (stuck - as in, "my leg is stuck between the bars of my crib"), "sie" (outside), "ri" (ride - she LOVES car rides), and "ba-ba" (bottle)...there are many more but those are the most reliable ones.
She blows kisses like a champ, only not on command.
We recently started a game where I balance something on my head and pretend to sneeze ("ah....ah....choo!") - which is, as I'm sure you already know, funny beyond measure. Then she'll put something on her head and say, "ahhhh..." with a huge smile on her face. =)
At her 1 year checkup, her head circumference was 92nd percentile, height was 50-something, and weight was 30-something. Picture a toothpick with a marshmallow at the top. Actually, she looks very proportionate, but you have to admit that the numbers are funny.
She is not my best sleeper. She was doing well for a while, but over the last few months she has decided that she likes company (and milk - switched from formula a month or two ago) at 3:30 EVERY SINGLE MORNING. If she weren't so heartbreakingly adorable it would be a lot more annoying, but as it is, it's getting old. She'll cry for a few minutes, and as soon as I walk in, she's silent. I pick her up from her crib and she remains silent. I put her on the ground to get ready to change her diaper, and she says, in the cutest way possible, and in a wide-awake voice, says, "ba-ba!" Who can resist that?
