Ruthie - you are 12 months old and 22 pounds, 8 oz! You wear 18 to 24 month size clothing and size 4 shoes. We celebrated your birthday on March 19th with a giant cupcake which you ate a piece of. You loved the Radio Flyer wagon given to you by your maternal grandparents, the wooden activity center cube given by us and your walker given to you by your paternal grandmother.
On March 19th, we held a birthday party for you at our home. Your paternal grandparents, three great grandparents and one grand uncle came. Mommy made a WW veggie chili soup for lunch and a big yellow duck cake that you loved! You enjoyed the stuffed lamb, duck and bear as well as the bike trailer we tried out together last weekend. We blew bubbles for you outside while you swung in your swing on the swing set. The day was warm and sunny.
You still hold your balance standing up for at least 20 minutes at a time or longer by holding on to the coffee table and the side of your pack and play. Walking along the side of the table or couch is favorite pastime and you have just recently managed to transfer yourself from holding on to one item to another.
At dinner time with us you sit in your high chair. We have given up on bibs unless the meal will be really messy. Since the beginning of February, you have eaten turkey, chicken, applesauce, cottage cheese, a plethora of vegetables and fruits. You are now an expert of drinking milk and water out of sippy cups all by yourself. Water is favored much more than cow's milk but that is OK since you are getting calcium in other ways such as broccoli, yogurt, cottage cheese, tuna, white beans and the like.
You have reduced your nursing intake from six nursings to two nursings in the past month. One nursing takes place at 8am and the other a 8pm. Just recently, within the past three weeks you have transitioned from waking up a couple times a night to not waking up at all during the night. Mommy and daddy are grateful for uninterrupted nights of sleep!
At your one year checkup, we learned you are 30 inches in height, 22lbs, 8oz, did not have anemia, and you received 2 scheduled vaccinations from the delayed vaccination schedule.
You say the words Da Da, do(g), du(ck), boo(k), boon (balloon), hi, hey and ma ma (only when you want to go to bed at night). You understand most of everything we say to you. Separation anxiety has kicked in and you throw a little crying tantrum when mommy or daddy go out of your sight. Your head snaps back and you cry. Sometimes daddy calls you a "Velociraptor."
I have childproofed all the cabinet doors in the house and you spend some of your time during the day trying to break into them. Just this morning, you utilized your walker to get to the toilet paper roll in the bathroom and had a blast pulling what was left on the roll into your arms and onto the floor! You bunched it up and let toilet paper fall to the floor. It was a wonderful mess I had to clean up!
Yesterday, I blew bubbles for you in the kitchen. Surprisingly, Kit decided to "eat" as many bubbles as possible which made you giggle and laugh uproariously. The sound of you laughing made me laugh and it was soooooo cute, I just had to blow more bubbles!
In the area of "crawling," we watched you "army crawl" for the first time on our bed while we were on the cruise. You just army crawled straight ahead from point A to point B, no problem. Since then, you have given up rolling as your main form of transportation and instead army crawl to get to your destinations, quite quickly, I might add! This past Sunday we promoted you to the "crawlers" class. You had a hard time since you did not know any of the children or teachers. When we picked you up at the end of church, you were such a sad little girl. :(
For months now, your favorite thing to do on the changing table is to pull as many wipes out of the wipe warmer as possible before mommy or daddy can stop you. Another fun joke on mommy and daddy is to grab as many items on the table that you can find and drop each one in the space between the table and the wall. Your body is so long now, that with a little push, your feet are able to kick over the small lamp! It won't be long before we'll have to remove the lamp or change you in the floor.
On Tuesday nights (for many months now), Daddy prints out a coloring page devotion for you to "color" after dinner. He brings child safe crayons to you and demonstrates coloring for you. You haven't caught on yet, but by 18 months, you might. After daddy tells you a brief Bible story, we gather together in the office and sing praise songs to God while Daddy plays the guitar and you shake the "egg shaker" to the beat of the songs. Your smile and enthusiastic shaking of the egg shaker is a sight pleasing to God.
Your daily routine goes something like this: Breakfast at 8am, play time, music time, lunch time, nap time, music time, book time, outside time, dinner time, play time, book time, bed time at 8pm.
