ONE

It's official. Our baby is a whole year old (plus two days already). We made the 12-month visit to her ped today. 17 pounds 10 ounces and 28.5 inches tall. I asked the ped which growth charts he uses and learned that his are not specific to breastfed babies, so of course his percentiles don't match up with what I find on the W.H.O web site. Regardless of her percentiles (which I didn't even bother to remember), he agreed that she looks healthy and is hitting all the usual milestones on time. He almost-sort-of apologized for suggesting supplementing at our last visit.

Charlotte has 7 teeth now, and seems to be working on some more. Drooling kicked up another notch yesterday, and her fingers are spending a lot of time in her mouth again.

Charlotte had a very long and trying day today, which turned out to be a temporary solution to the sleep/cry problem. I woke her up 45 minutes early this morning so I could drop her off at her old daycare while I visited the RE. The daycare has openings a couple of days each week and accepts drop-ins at an hourly rate. Since she's been having issues with naps, I told the teacher not to bother putting Charlotte down for one. Instead, I picked her up an hour after her usual nap time and drove around for 75 minutes so she could sleep in the car until her ped appointment. She had two vaccinations/immunizations today, and took them really well. She yelled at each needle stick, but calmed quickly afterwards and was smiley-happy again by the time I'd put her pants back on. Shots always wear Charlotte out. Even after a decent nap this afternoon, she was exhausted by 5:30 and asleep in my lap by 6:15. I sat and rocked her awhile to make sure she was deeply asleep, then moved her into her crib without disturbing her at all. No tears tonight. Hurray for all of us!

Charlotte still drinks 20-24 ounces of breastmilk (frozen/thawed) daily, and I think there's enough in the freezer to last about two more weeks. Her daily eat/sleep routine is generally something like this...

6:30 am- 8oz breastmilk upon waking;
8-9:30- nap;
9:30- 7-grain cereal with mashed banana and tahini, about 2/3 cup, washed down with 4oz breastmilk;
12:30- bread, cheese, fruit, and vegetables (she loves peas now that they're not mush)- usually all as finger-foods so she can feed herself- with 2oz breastmilk;
1:30-3- nap
3:30- snack of yogurt with fruit and wheat germ mixed in, plus 2oz breastmilk;
5:30- soup and a cracker or two, with 8oz breastmilk of which she usually drinks 3-4oz;
6:45- the rest of the breastmilk that she started with dinner.
7:00- bed.

All-told, I dump 2-4oz of breastmilk every day just because she doesn't always finish all that I prepare for her. I learned, though, that she completely loses interest in milk when forced to wait for a refill. She drinks more, and wastes less, when I offer a little more than I think she'll drink. She drinks all her milk from a sippy, and water from a toddler cup with a straw. We practive using a "big girl cup" every day, and she does well getting water into her mouth. Then, she seems to decide she's not thirsty after all and opens her mouth so the water streams out. Some days, she has a huge appetite and eats more than I thought she could hold. Other days, she's not so interested in food and pushes everything away after a couple of bites. It helps that she can sign "all done," and knows what it means so she can tell us when she's finished versus when she just wants something besides what's in front of her. She is not afraid to try any food I put in front of her, and only eggs have met with a consistently negative reaction.

As far as talking goes, she knows and uses about 25 signs, and has begun imitating her video while watching it. She doesn't seem to learn new signs as quickly as they're presented, but she tries them out and it seems a new one or two stick every day. Yesterday, she learned "snow." Other recent additions are hot, cold, rain, up, and down. She loves to imitate sounds, especially ssssss and shhhhh when we say words like soup or fish. She tells our cats to get "dow" when they climb on the table.

Waterbabies continues to be great fun, although I liked the teacher in the first session a lot better. Music class is a blast- Charlotte is so confident that she crawls right up to the bigger kids and their parents and grunts or smiles to introduce herself. She spends as much time cruising around the room as singing and dancing with me. She has yet to demonstrate any stranger anxiety at all, although if I am in the room she demands to be the center of my attention.

Charlotte is still sooooo close to walking, but not doing it on her own yet. She moves faster and leans on my hands less every day when we walk together, but freezes up as soon as I let go. She can stand on her own for over a minute, bend down to pick something up off the floor then return to standing, and eat/drink/play while standing alone. I'm still hopeful that she'll be walking by her birthday party on 4/10.

Here are some pictures...
11-month caterpillar shot. She's no longer willing to lie beside the caterpillar, so this was the best I could wrangle.

The train was her birthday present, and she loves to run back and forth across her bedroom pushing it, but she doesn't know how to turn it around or steer. In this photo, she's standing alone and playing peek-a-boo with the train.
The weather finally turned spring-like, so Charlotte got to try out the swings and slides at a local park. She LOVED them! We'll be back there often, maybe daily, when the spring finally settles in for real.