ada charlotte {12 months}

My Dear Sweet Ada,

It's official -- you're one year old! We kept you alive for a whole year, and I'm feeling pretty good about that! :)

You are our greatest joy, sweet girl. In every prayer I offer, I can't help but express such gratitude for you, for dad, and for the family we create together. We are so incredibly blessed to all have each other. The time spent waiting to get pregnant with you almost seems like a distant memory, but I never forget how much I wanted you and how grateful I am to have you.

You are beautiful, funny, sweet, mischievous, and I'm excited to see what comes next for you. I love you, baby girl!

Stats

You weigh a whopping 18.8 pounds (holding steady at 35%) and you are 29.5 inches long (62% -- right between your percentiles for the last two months). Apparently babies typically triple their birth weight by the time they're a year old. You haven't even doubled yours yet!
You are still wearing mostly 6-month items, but you are also wearing pretty much all your 6-9 month items, too. You even still fit in 0-3 month onesies, but it's a tight fit so I'll be removing those from your drawers this week. But I did put you in the onesie we brought you home from the hospital in the day before your birthday just for fun :)

You're also still wearing size 3 diapers.

Notable events

You had your birthday and, consequently, your birthday party! :)

Tricks/Milestones

At the end of August, you were pulling up on things, but only to your knees. You started pulling up to your feet at the beginning of September. You've stood unassisted once or twice, but only for a second. Once you realize you're standing without help, you slowly squat down to the floor.

You're now drinking water from a straw like a pro! Still no sippy cup, though.
One Saturday, Daddy and I were trying to teach you how to climb stairs, but you didn't seem to be getting it, and we had to do all the work for you. The following Tuesday (9/5), you started climbing the stairs all on your own, and you were officially a stair master. It was so crazy because you went from not doing it at all, to doing it perfectly!
We weaned you from two of your four milk feedings this month. It was really easy, because like I mentioned before, you started drinking pretty much no milk (1-2 ounces) at some of your milk feedings. So I just gave you a sip of water instead of milk as soon as you woke up, and you did just fine with the transition! The two feedings that remain are first thing in the morning and as part of your bedtime routine, but I've been cutting the amount I give you in the morning, so now you're down to about 4 oz instead of 6-8.
You made it a whole year without getting any teeth! But I'm sure your bottom teeth are going to pop through soon because there is definitely a bump there!

My favorite things

Sometimes I'll lay on the floor and I'll lay you on top of me . . . instead of laying your head on my shoulder or something, you often lay it right on my face! So we're either cheek to cheek or cheek (you) to mouth and eyes and face (me). It's funny :)
You've been giving lots of kisses this month! Most often with a wiiiide open mouth and lots of slobber, but they're adorable nonetheless.
You've been calm and happy during our morning walks!! For a while, you would cry almost the whole time. I would take you on the walk to hold you over til naptime, but you would complain the whole time. But now, you are almost always quiet, calm, and happy during our walks. You often suck your thumb (like you do for bedtimes) and look so mellow. It's so nice to be able to enjoy our walks more! :D
We have some pillows with pom-poms on them, and you are obsessed with them. You're always trying to grab the poms and put them in your mouth, which I try to stop. But lately, when you get hold of a pom, you look at me or daddy -- pom in mouth -- with the most mischievous look ever! Like you know you're breaking the rules! It's the funniest and cutest face 😂
We have some friends who have this big fluffy dog named Max. You first met Max on a walk, and he put his face right up to your face and you loved it! But then a few weeks later, we went over to Katie's house and you played with Max on the ground and it was. THE. CUTEST. THING. EVER. You had no fear and the two of you loved each other! At least until Max barked in your face. That did scare you haha.

You do this thing where you push your eyebrows down but then look up, so your eyes are seriously creepy and evil looking! But you do it because you always get a rise out of us. It's just hilarious! Unfortunately, I have NO PICTURES of you doing this look, but it's kind of a mixture of the next two photos.

Random tidbits

You had a playdate with your cousin Adeline earlier in the month. It was kind of hilarious because she kept telling you that you couldn't play with anything you picked up. You ended up playing with this baby doll, but she didn't want you to play with that either, so every so often she'd try to trade you a different toy, but you'd start screaming for the doll back, so Adeline decided it wasn't worth it and let you have the doll.
At bedtime, you are suuuper stop and go with your bottle. You'll drink some and then push it away, so we'll put it on the ground. Then we'll put you down on the ground for a diaper change and you'll immediately start crawling for the milk. You pretty much take a sip whenever you can get one throughout the whole bedtime routine.
We made some friends at the park -- April and Max. Max is a few months younger than you, but the two of you seem to have fun playing. He's doing pretty much all the same things you are (crawling, pulling up, etc.), so it's fun to see the two of you interact.

When I sit on the couch, you often pull up and suck on my knee. When I'm standing in the kitchen cooking, you often pull up and suck on my calf. It's pretty funny :)
Diaper changes this month were a nightmare. Out of nowhere, you started hating them! Specifically, you don't want to hold still on your back, so you get super angry when we keep putting you back on your back or when we kinda hold you down to change you. Diaper changes were often accompanied by a lot of crying this month. You'd think we were torturing you! Anyway, sometimes we'd have to come up with ways to distract you to keep you on your back. One that worked pretty well was holding a plastic cup on my face (over my mouth) and making noises at you or rubbing your belly with the cup.
You learned that toilet paper unrolls. Now we have to be careful to keep you out of bathrooms!
I don't want to jinx it, but you don't seem obsessed with pulling my hair anymore!
Since you learned to climb stairs, climbing into the dishwasher was no problem for you! Ha that was a funny one :)
You don't like to blindly eat -- aka, you don't like when we put something in your mouth. When we do, you almost always pull it out to look at it before putting it back in.
You found the plastic silverware that was in your bottom dresser drawer and you're obsessed with playing with them. Two funny occurrences with the silverware: 1. I combed through my hair and your hair with the fork. You try to copy that :) 2. I pulled you to stand using two knives. Once you were up, I let go of the knives. You stood for a second, but promptly sat when you realized I had let go.
You threw up in bed (and at all) for the first time. I don't think you were actually sick, because you were happy and didn't ever throw up again, but MAN it stunk when I went in to get you out of bed that morning. We had to wash sheets and open windows and everything.
You like to climb all over your dad and me. You're so good at navigating arms and legs and stomachs.
You still do the thing where you shake your head back and forth over and over and over again, and you do it at the perfect moments! It's usually just when you actually might be meaning "no" or when you might be meaning "yes." Either way it ends up being funny.
Sometimes you lay on your back and hold your legs in the air, open in a V like you're doing a wall sit. It's cute and funny looking on your tiny body :)
Whenever you're having a hard time in the car lately, I reach my hand back to you and hold your hand. It keeps you calm most times :)
I learned a new version of the "baker's man" nursery rhyme from Granny B and Papa T -- apparently the English version. It goes, "Patty cake, patty cake, bake a little man; roll him, roll him, roll him, and throw him in the pan!" Anyway, you love it. And it's funny because once we finish, you'll push our hands back together to start clapping and doing the rhyme again. You're such a stinkin' cutie :)
So I'm not sure what was happening this month, but your usual schedule was NOT cutting it. You were needing so much more sleep than normal -- I was putting you down 15-60 minutes early for every nap. Part of you being so tired meant you were actually cuddly. You often cuddle us when we're singing to you before a nap, but you were even cuddling me for 20 solid minutes in the middle of a wake period! This phase didn't last for long -- maybe a week -- but I LOVED cuddling with you all the time for that week. And since that week, you've been a tiny bit more of a cuddler. Occasionally. When you want to. Haha still not super often, but definitely more than before, so I'll take it!

You woke up sick on your birthday. What that meant was that the night before and after your birthday, you cried a little bit a few times after going to bed (around 10 or 11pm). This is typical of you when you're sick. So like I often do when you're sick, I went in to your room, picked you up, and cuddled you for a few minutes so that you could feel comforted and return to sleep easily. It was just perfect that I got to do this on both of the nights that sandwiched your birthday. I loved soaking in that time cuddling with you, my little one-year-old.

Love always,
Mama :)