Where did my little baby go?

| October 13, 2010

I can’t believe that Sam is already almost 13 months old. Her birthday was just yesterday it seems.  The time is just zipping by.  I look at Sam and am just amazed at how she has changed in the last year. I remember so clearly how she was just this sweet little bundle of baby who would do nothing more than stare at us and smile. Now, Sam has such a personality!  She is such a… well…little person.  A little person who has her own quirks, and traits, and who has her own needs and desires that she is trying so hard to communicate to us.

I had posted before about how Sam has started creating her own games with us.  She still does that which is just so much fun.  But she plays our games differently too. She is much more interactive than she used to be.  For example, she has these little stacking cups.  I always take them and put them on her stuffed animals’ heads so they look like hats because it makes her laugh. She always pulls them off.  Well, now after she pulls the cup off, she tries to put one on the stuffed animal herself.  Inevitably, it is crooked, or wrong side up, but she is trying to do it herself and that’s really fun to watch.

Sam is so funny and she finds amusement in so many things.  She often just cracks herself up.  In the carseat she just starts laughing for no reason. I wish I knew what she was thinking about!  Some other funny things she does are that she fake coughs to get a reaction, and laughs when you fake cough back.  I just discoved that she thinks air kicks are hysterical, I have no idea why.  Maybe I just look like a dork doing them, I don’t know.

She definitely knows what she wants now too. If she wants to do something and you don’t let her, boy does she have a fit!  She is getting quite a little temper.  I know it is important for them to assert some independence, but we are trying to nip the tantrums in the bud.  The look on her face is precious though — she looks so mad!

One more positive aspect of her knowing what she wants is that she points all the time now to try to tell us what she wants.  She points to her cup, her food, her toys, pretty much anything she wants if she can’t reach it.  I don’t know why, but I really just find it fascinating to see how she clearly tries to communicate with us.  It is easy to forget how smart little ones are when they can’t talk.  But the wheels are spinning in their heads that is for sure.  When I read to her I try to point to things that I am reading about.  She sometimes points to those things now on her own when I get to that part of the story.  I love when she does that.  I keep thinking that all of this is just a step towards learning to talk.  I can’t wait to hear her little voice!

Every single day I feel like I learn something new about my amazing daughter.  I am so lucky to have her, I just wish the time wasn’t flying by so incredibly fast.

So, where have we been?

| October 13, 2010

Yikes!  I was reminded today by my friend Debbi that it has been ages since our last post.  I didn’t realize it had actually been that long until I just logged on tonight.  I can’t believe it’s been 2 weeks!  So, let me update you on what’s been going on with our little girl.

Let’s start with eating.  Sam has been doing GREAT with the whole no formula/only milk and table food switch. She is really surprising us.  She has been eating way more than we ever have seen her eat before.  For example, a few nights ago, we went to Bertucci’s and she ate 8 whole rigatoni, some bread and a little bit of fruit!  That’s a lot for a little tummy!  At home she has been doing so well.  Sometimes she really surprises us with her appetite.  Our next challenge is getting her to eat a bigger variety of food.  She is still a little reluctant to try new things, but as they say, it can take 10-12 times showing them new food before they will accept it, so what can you do but keep trying.

I guess the next “food” obstacle is getting her off of her bottles.  She is only on 3 per day now with milk in them, not formula, and only for naps and bedtime. The rest of the day, we only offer her a sippy cup or her straw cup with water.  She is really good with the straw cup, but sippy cups are still a challenge. She doesn’t quite get, or doesn’t want to get, the concept of tipping it up so the liquid fills the spout.  Personally, I think she is a little lazy about it, but she will learn.  Mark and I have both stopped holding her bottle so that she has to do it herself.  I am hoping we can move her to just sippy cups at naptime and bedtime.

Sleep has also improved so much.  Initially after switching off of formula, she was not sleeping well at all.  She had a few nights where she was waking up constantly.  One night, Mark and I swear she was up about every hour or two. It was horrible. We didn’t know what to do.  We had been giving her a bedtime snack, but I guess maybe it wasn’t enough.  We got the suggestion to start giving her oatmeal before bed because that, combined with the milk, would really fill her stomach. It definitely seems to work!  Once we started that routine, Sam started sleeping through the night, not a peep out of her.  Ah…blissful sleep!  Her naps have been getting shorter, only about an hour instead of 1.5 hours, and sometimes I can’t even get her to take her afternoon nap, but honestly, I am happy with what I get.  I think she is too young to switch to one nap a day, but as Mom likes to remind me, by the time I was 1 year old, I wouldn’t nap at all.  I hope that Sam doesn’t take after me!

Sam has been practicing walking with her walking toy she got for her birthday from my Aunt Barbara and she does so well with it!  She just walks all over the house. It is so adorable.  Sam hasn’t quite mastered standing on her own without holding on to something, but she is definitely trying.  As soon as she does, I think walking won’t be far behind.

Hmmm…what else?  Healthwise, she has been doing perfectly, as usual.  We are so lucky she has not really been sick.  She did run a fever of 102.2 about 9 days after her MMR vaccine, which is normal, but still we were glad it only lasted one day because we could tell she felt kind of grumpy.

I guess that’s about it for updates on Sammy girl.  I hope this post wasn’t too long, but as I said, it’s been a while and I had a lot to say! We will try to post some new pictures soon.