It’s been a big week. Big stuff happening!

– Her first birthday party! We had cupcakes and ice cream and a few friends over for kebabs and beers (for the adults). J didn’t really want the cupcakes or ice cream, but she had some peppers and squash from the kababs and a good time gnawing on her presents and helping open them. The dump truck and the dinosaurs were the biggest hits. The reptangles were a hit with the adults!

– She has also figured out how to sit down intentionally. It’s pretty cute to watch her walk up to my boppy pillow or a stuffed tofu, very carefully line herself up, turn around, and plop! down on her butt. She misses about 25% of the time, but when she lands just right she’ll often stand back up and sit back down a couple times.

– First dinner outing as a family (just us). I can’t believe it took us a year (okay, yes I can) to go out to dinner just the 3 of us. It was a great evening! J was pretty good, although she got impatient with sitting at the table long before Dad and I were done eating. I made a little barricade of chairs and let her wander around a little in that, then afterwards we went outside and she walked around for a while.

– Feeding others. I guess people are always putting things in her mouth, it’s only fair that she start to put food in other people’s mouths. Mostly mine, so far.

Some of the biggest things all seem to center around communication. It started last week with the pointing, and of course she’s been doing things like lifting her arms to be picked up, or holding out books for us to read to her, but there have been some big leaps!

– Understanding and following directions. She will sit down, come here, watch me, look there, give me what she has in her mouth if I say, “May I have that please?” It sounds like a list of tricks you’d teach your dog but they’re all very useful things with a baby too! Also, she will occasionally clearly understand you saying, “Come here please!” and choose to NOT come. Sometimes she seems mischievous about it and sometimes it’s plain that she just would rather keep on doing whatever she’s doing, thank you very much.

– Her understanding in general is so dramatic. She’s constantly pointing to things she sees, and seems satisfied if you tell her what they are. We have a bunch of foam letters and the other night she would hold one up. I would tell her what letter it was and then what sound it made. It’s hard to describe why I think this was more than just holding up various things and waiting for a response, but it really seemed like she was paying attention to the fact that I was making different sounds. Her favorite books these days are Pat The Bunny and any book with a variety of words. She just wants to hear them all.

– “Kitty” is definitely a word. I pointed out a dog the other day and she said “dog” back at me. She might have just been imitating, but I doubt it will be just imitation for long. We’re still not sure about “Dad”

– Signing! Holy cow is she signing now! At some point we were on the den floor and she was pointing at something in the kitchen. I told her I saw flowers and she pointed to the same spot again, so I told her I saw a cup. She grunted and pointed again, then looked at me and signed “milk.” Then I realized there was a bottle with milk in it sitting right next to the flowers! It was old milk so I didn’t let her have it, but I did offer to nurse. She will also sign for “play peek-a-boo with me” and when she’s “finished” with food/bath/etc. Just this morning she signed for “more” Cheerios! She had found one or two sitting in her carseat as I went to put her in, and ate them (It’s good for her immune system!). Then she looked at me and brought her hands together. I said, “You want more?” and she made the gesture again and gave me a huuuuuge smile and I swear I could see the excitement in her eyes. I called to Dad to bring a small handful of Cheerios. She was so happy to get them. The sign for “Cheerios” is very similar to how she signs for “milk” (and also how she waves hi/bye) so I should see if I can figure out a sign for Cheerios too.

First, a quote that I think you’ll all enjoy:

“such blog many akwards such uuuuhhhhh”

— Adam J. Rinn

On to the post!

I’m starting to lose track of what’s a first and what’s not. At this point, given that she’s almost a year old, I’ll probably stop calling these weekly posts “Milestone Monday” and switch to just making a goal of weekly updates about whatever. Because she’s doing some things that I’m not sure when they started, or if they really count as milestones, or whether I’ve talked about them before.

– Second word? I think she’s saying “Keh” when pointing at the kitties. Not totally sure though, because she says a lot of things that are seemingly random.

– first dentist appointment (or was that last week?). She was fantastic and the dentist said that she was a perfect patient! The dentist also confirmed my suspicion that she has a thick/tight frenulum on her upper lip (aka lip tie) but since it’s not interfering with breastfeeding and doesn’t seem to be causing tooth decay or speech problems, suggested we leave it alone until her permanent teeth come in. Fair enough! I think it’s the cause of the weird white spots on her two front teeth, but the dentist also said they don’t seem damaged, just discolored.

– Oh, the tribulations of the pooping. I swear, before having a baby I never really thought about the fact that my happiness would rest in the bowels of a tiny human whose only word is, “Hi,” randomly applied to trees and walls as much as other people. This Saturday evening, I called the nurse line at the pedatrician’s office because J hadn’t pooped in 8 days and I wanted to see if I could give her a laxative or something. She wasn’t sleeping well because she kept straining to go and not being able to. They told me to take her to the ER. It seemed excessive, but I obeyed. She pooped after we’d been there 3 hours, but it took us another 2 to get out and then another hour to get her settled to sleep. We’ve been feeling the effects for sure, mostly in totally messed up sleep schedules and a fussy baby, but we also left with a prescription for Miralax, so I’ve got high hopes that we’ll get back on track soon. At school today she apparently let loose! The student worker who changed it looked slightly traumatized. Meanwhile, I’m exhausted and unhappy, same as she.

– she’s been sick for 4/7 days in the last week, so there’s not a whole lot to report. Her current favorite book is My First Words and her favorite toy that’s not a toy is the wipes dispenser. Kleenex are even better because she can rip those up and eat them, but I a almost never let her have those.

It’s been a tough week, and yesterday was a particularly hard day. J has a terrible yeast diaper rash that seems to be really bothering her. She’s also not napping well at the new daycare (only taking one nap per day, and it’s a long one but she’s still exhausted by the time I pick her up). She is adjusting to the schedule but very slowly, and clearly she’s been pretty sleep deprived. I keep having to wake her up in the mornings, then she has trouble sleeping at night. So anyway, last night she had a lot of trouble and was very fussy and miserable. I didn’t have a chance to write. Yay.

The yeast rash is a real bummer. We’re treating it with clotrimazole, but we only started that last night. It seemed to sting when we put it on, but that might have just been because I was touching it :(. In addition to the rash, I think she and I are getting thrush. I’ve still got a prescription for APNO so I’ve started using that, and also she and I are starting up probiotics. Hopefully that will be enough, and I won’t have to go down the long road of fighting off thrush in a nursing dyad, which I hear is terrible. But! I think I caught it all pretty early, so I have hope that we can escape without too much trouble. Also, I have a closed system pump which should help prevent constant recurrence.

In other, happier news! We have pointing! Lots of pointing! Pointing at everything! I had gotten pretty good at figuring out what she was looking at, and pointing actually confuses things, because she’ll point at a thing and look at me, instead of looking at the thing so I can see where she’s looking! But it’s cute because her hands are still baby-chubby, and she can’t make a fist like an adult, so the pointing is very uniquely baby.

Not much else going on. She can walk like a real champ now, and is falling much less often! She rarely crawls anywhere. Okay, time to pick up the house a little while she sleeps!

On Thursday, J started at her new daycare. I was able to take a half day on Wednesday and bring her over for a few hours to visit, and I’m so glad I did. That first day (Wednesday), she stuck really close to me for about an hour. She gradually got more comfortable with the room, and even let Ms. Olga change her diaper with only a minimum of freaking out (I stood right there so she could see me). We were there about 3 hours, and by the end of the visit she was going up to the teachers and grabbing the books they were reading, offering them her toys, and generally acting pretty content and secure. Thursday morning I stayed for about an hour with her, and when I left she was all smiles as she played with one of the pushing toys. Honestly, the new daycare is simply amazing. There is such a variety of stuff to do in the room! The old place seems very very austere by comparison. That’s probably a Montessori thing, but after watching J in the new place, I’m excited for the learning/playing opportunities she has there. She seemed to really embrace it all!

Walking is continuing to advance. On Wednesday, she walked about 30 feet! There isn’t really a space that large for her to walk in at home, but the new school has lots of room. She has definitely started to get fussy about walking though. There are lots of times where she could easily get where she’s trying to go by crawling, but instead she stands up, tries to walk, falls over, rinse repeat. She gets very frustrated.

Using a spoon! She’s having some luck with eating from a spoon. She definitely understands what it’s for. The dexterity is not quite there, and she gets distracted easily and does things like dump the food out. But she is (slightly) less apt to take the spoon then try to pick up the yogurt that I’ve put in the spoon for her.

Words? I swear she says, “Hi!” and “Dad” or “Dada.” Does she use them appropriately is more difficult. Mostly? But sometimes she says hi randomly. And she often says, “aahhh-dah!” so I don’t know. But we might have a first word :).