Ten, Eleven, Twelve, Thirteen...I won't even apologize.

Eleanor Ann - 1 Year Old - December 27, 2017

Life with two kids is rich and full and wonderful and tiring...and some of the little luxuries, like blogging regularly and taking monthly pictures, have fallen by the wayside. The Type A part of me minds a little bit, because now Ellie won't have twelve matching monthly pictures in her baby book, and sometimes I feel guilty, because I managed to do all this for Sam...except that it was only Sam, and even then, it was a hard enough struggle to try to do all the things I wanted to as far as marking and celebrating his milestones.

Ellie, we have been enjoying you (and trying to catch up to you!) so much that we haven't stopped to mark all of your milestones. We take lots of pictures and videos of you, but we are hardly organized, especially with some computer issues that have meant re-importing all of our photos, and so these days, we have doubles and triples of photos, stored in many and various places, and nothing is lost, but nothing is orderly, either.

So here we are, sweet baby girl. You have been with us thirteen months and two days.

You are spunky, little one. You love to laugh. You have a sense of humor and enjoy making others laugh. Joy and laughter are at the heart of our interactions, and I can see you making more connections and initiating intentional interactions. We play "so big" (when you are in the mood), and you thrust your hands into the sky with a big goofy grin before clapping for yourself. And then sticking you hands up two or three more times so that we'll say "so big!" to you all over again. You play peek-a-boo by smushing your hands over your eyes, or sometimes only one hand, and giggle like crazy, even before you take your hands away. You blow kisses to us by dramatically smacking your hand over your mouth. When you drop something, you say "uh-oh!," and sometimes you drop things just so that you can say "uh-oh" and laugh. In the last few days, you've added a palms-up "what just happened?" gesture to this game. So you'll throw a bath toy over the edge of the tub, and then say "uh-oh," and then grin and giggle as you shrug...and then point and say "da!" until we pick up the toy for you again.

You are finding your voice, which is adorable, even though you don't have any real words yet. Besides "uh-oh," you say "ta-dah!" when you have accomplished something. If you're in the right mood, when I ask you to say "Mama," you say "Bah-bah-bah-bah-bah!" and when I ask you to say "Dada," you sometimes actually say "da-da-da-da-da." You make growling noises at Sam when he makes growling noises at you. You point and say "da" a lot. Sometimes this is to show us something you want. Sometimes it is to show us where you want to go. Most often, though, it is simply to show us what you're looking at and to ask us to talk about all the things that you can see. You are very proud of the signs that you know, and especially proud when you string them together. You know how to sign "more," but you do it by tapping your thumb into the palm of your opposite hand. You know how to sign, "please," and sometimes rub your belly instead of your chest, or sometimes rub with two hands instead of one. You're working on the sign for "cup," which looks a lot like "more." You've learned "milk" as well, but you usually only use that to ask to nurse. Last week, you were sitting in my lap and you signed "more" and then "milk" and then "please," all in a row. And then you were SOOOOOO proud! And then started yelling at me because I was so excited that I was slow in granting your request. :)

You are drinking from a sippy cup these days, only water so far, and you love being able to feed yourself finger foods. You can hold and suck down pouches of baby food by yourself, and you would eat two or three in a row every time if you could. You enjoy all of the baby snacks - puffs, rice crackers, Cheerios, yogurt melts - and your favorite big-person foods are definitely bread and cheese. Last week, you discovered that you could take bites right off of a whole banana, and you thought that was pretty darn amazing. You are not as fearless about textures as Sam was at this age. So you aren't terribly interested in eating most fruits and vegetables, except in puree form. At this point, we try to give you at least a little bit of whatever we are eating for dinner, trying to expand your tastes. You aren't so sure. When you don't want what we try to feed you, you are a master at clamping your mouth shut and turning your head to the side. When you're tired of eating, you also like to sweep everything from your high chair tray onto the floor. You think this is pretty hilarious.

We are only really nursing in the morning and at bedtime these days, and sometimes only at bedtime. I'm proud that we made it a full year nursing, and I suspect that we aren't going to last as long as Sam and I did, which is totally fine. You are more independent than Sam was at eleven months, and even though you are quite affectionate and can definitely be clingy, you aren't cuddly in quite the same way as he was.

That being said, of course, your favorite thing these days, when you are down on the floor playing, is to crawl over to me and plunk yourself right into my lap. Sometimes you want to sit there a long time as you play, and sometimes you come check in and then go back to what you were doing. When you need reassurance, you come near, put two fingers in your mouth, and use your other hand to grab onto me, preferable someplace where you can feel skin. Sometimes you lean in to give kisses, though they are mostly open-mouth lunges. Still pretty sweet.

Sleep continues to be a mystery with you. Each night, we put on pjs and a sleep sack and settle into the chair for cuddles and nursing. Often, you fall asleep while nursing, and for a while, you were usually pretty easy to transfer into your crib. These days, transfer is much harder and I don't know why. Once we get you settled in your crib, it is anybody's guess what will happen next. Last week, you had two nights in a row where you slept from 8:30 p.m. until at least 7:00 a.m. But then the next nights, you were awake just a couple hours after going down, and refused to sleep anywhere except for on us or near us. You've done a lot of sleeping in the big bed. One shift in the last couple weeks is that you no longer demand to nurse in the middle of the night when you wake up. You simply want to cuddle up and sleep while touching us. Which is sweet, but also means that you spend too much time in our bed, which means that Daddy and I don't get enough good sleep, because we are either waking up to tend to you, or sleeping lightly so as not to hurt you.

You are still a peanut, despite your love of eating (seriously, your daycare teachers cannot believe how much you eat, and lovingly tease you about it!). At your one-year appointment, you were just a little over 17.5 pounds...which is pretty close to what your cousin Max weighs right now, and he is half your age!. I've been putting you in 12 month clothes, but they are all a little baggy. You fit best into your 9 month clothes, but I packed most of those away after Christmas to make room for all of the adorable new things you received as gifts. You have big blue eyes, and your eyelashes are starting to get long. You have small features - a cute little nose and ears, and definitely my chin. After growing two teeth on the bottom, you took forever before growing any new ones, and then, you grew your four top teeth nearly simultaneously right after Christmas. You also have a third one coming in on the bottom right now. Your hair is not so curly anymore, and it has lightened considerably, though it is still definitely a reddish/chestnut color. You have a patch of hair in back and another bunch of hair on top that have been growing since before you were born into the outside world - so these two patches of crazy long hair. For a while, you were either rocking an amazing mullet or an amazing rat tail, depending on the day. A few weeks ago, though, your daycare teachers pulled all of your longest hair up into a spunky ponytail sticking out of the side of your head, and it was the cutest thing ever, so we have started doing that with some regularity.

You are sweet and silly, and you are in a stage right now where you are really working hard to figure out who "your people" are. You think Sam is the greatest. You laugh the hardest when he is being silly with you, even though he has a propensity for pulling you down, or hugging you (hard) against your will, or shoving you out of the way when you have taken a toy that belongs to him. Your favorite thing in the world is to flop around on Sam's bed (you also love to play on our bed, too, crawling and flopping and standing up against the headboard). You adore Emme and Hilde, and they are both remarkably patient with you. You are gentler with the kitties than Sam was. He used to "pet" them by smacking them in the belly. You do a better job of petting, except that you also tend to go for their faces, which makes for some uncomfortable poked eyes and ears. Daddy is great to be around...unless Mama is at all nearby, and then you decide that you absolutely cannot survive unless you are in my arms. You have gotten to know your daycare teachers, and reach for them when we arrive each day, mainly because they carry you right over to the high chair for second breakfast. You are wary of strangers and tend to hold onto our shoulders if we try to hand you off against your will.

Speaking of wills...you are a strong-willed, strong-opinioned little girl. When things are not going your way, you let out a high-pitched shriek, and sometimes you throw your whole body backwards, whether we are holding you or whether you are sitting on the floor or sitting in your high chair, which makes for lots of fears about bonked heads and falls. When you are upset or when you are getting too silly, you tend to claw or hit my face, which is not very nice at all! But when you are happy, you are the happiest! So you are a girl who feels big emotions. We will be privileged to nurture that in you as you grow up.

You're crawling like crazy, and when you're happy, you swing your head back and forth as you prance along the floor. You stand up with ease, either against furniture, or, when motivated, just in the middle of nothing. You cruise around furniture, and you enjoy walking with a walker, and you have taken a few steps solo, but mostly, you aren't interested in walking very much right now. You'll do it if you have to get from one place to another, but you don't seem terribly excited to explore the idea of walking hands-free.

What amazes me most right now is watching you make connections. Your eyes light up when you figure things out. You watch us and you imitate. When you pull your toy phone out of your toy basket, you hold it up to your ear. When you grab your hairbrush out of my hand, you start trying to brush your hair. When I get silly with you and make laughing noises "hahahahaha" and "hohohohoho" and shake my head as I do so, you form your mouth into the shape of the word and shake your head back at me. You love pretending to cook in the toy kitchen - so much, in fact, that we have moved it from the study into the kitchen so that we can cook together at the same time. When you grab a stuffed animal or a soft toy, you hug it like your are holding a baby. This morning, I set you on the bed and, without thinking, tapped my hands on the bed after smoothing the comforter. You immediately started patting the bed in response. You like the process of opening things up and shutting them again, of taking things out of containers and then putting them back in. You love your set of stacking cups because you can test out stacking and nesting and pulling apart and knocking over.

You are curious, and smart, and persistent. You are funny and opinionated. You are loyal but you will not be unjustly bossed around. I think that you are going to grow up into one fabulously strong woman with a totally spectacular sense of self...and I'm pretty sure you will give your Mama and Daddy fits along the way.

You are a joy and a blessing, dearest Eleanor. We love being your parents. Even if we can't seem to plunk you down reliably for a monthly picture and blot post. :)