First Birthday

The day has arrived for our sweet girl to turn ONE! What a year it's been too. Here was our sweet girl this morning before we left to start our day:

You can see her face is still a little swollen with sleep, but she's a happy girl today!

Let's see...what can I catch you up on since my last post?

She has started walking! It's now up to about 4 - 5 steps at a time, but she gets a big smile on her face when she does it. I picked her up from Day Care yesterday and the lady encouraged her to walk to me instead of crawling like she normally does. It's awesome! And frightening at the same time!

Another new trend: tantrums. Oh yes, they have started! Last night I wanted to show Jason how she could walk and she melted like Gumby each time we set her on the floor. Granted, she was tired, but she's started to kick her feet and do the Alligator roll when she's unhappy about something.

She has started visiting the toddler room and I believe she'll be transitioning there either in December or January full time. She's not an "infant" anymore as of today! Her new classroom is adorable and the teacher is great. She's teaching Rachel how to sleep on a cot at Day Care, so my hope is we convert her crib into a big girl bed sometime early next year!!

Her babble is still adorable. LOTS of raspberries and spitting, because she finds it fun. She also whispers sometimes when she's making noises and it's so sweet. Of course, she does yell a lot too because she can, and that's sweet as well.

We did get her car seat! It's currently sitting in our living room and Rachel has taken to climbing on it...

She also climbs on other things....

And as graceful and careful as it looks like she's being....she has knocked that little rocking chair over and bonked her head on the swing. She's getting braver though, that's for sure.

For funsies....here's a picture of a cute little sweater she has:

Look at that Toboggan on top!!! I love this sweater!

This past weekend my friend Amber watched Rachel while Jason and I ran an errand and she took these for me:

How cute is that? Waiting with the dog for mommy and daddy to come home. I love having little baby finger prints on our windows. (And I love love love bib overalls!)

She's growing like a weed, soaking up knowledge like a sponge, and playing like it's her job. We couldn't have asked for a better baby.

Ready for another year of following Rachel?

A First Giant Step...

You read the title right: Our girl is starting to walk! Oh the gigantic leap this beautiful little baby has made in her life! It happened last Saturday, November 5. She stood up on her own in the middle of the living room next to me, so I scooted back where I was sitting on the floor and coaxed herl. Sure enough, she took a step towards me, and every day since then she's taken at least one step. Last night she took 2 all on her own!! Soon she'll be tottering around on both legs instead of on all fours. I'm so excited for our little one.

This past Tuesday I had my very first parent teacher conference. Turns out, it was the teacher's first PTC as well! We had a great conversation and I'm so excited about Rachel's progress there. She's social, happy, and developing beautifully. I was also told that it's time for Rachel to transition from the Infant 2 room to the toddler room. In order for this to happen, all children must:
- Wear shoes every day
- Walk reasonably well
- Take one nap a day (from 12 - 2:30)
- Eat table food well

The only item from the above list she will struggle with is the one nap a day. Currently I've just let her sleep whenever she's tired. And why not? Forcing her into a strict routine will cause so many problems down the road if our plans suddenly change (which they do often). I've not wanted her to be on a strict schedule as a baby. Now we'll be working to move her naps to the middle of the day. And if that's the biggest transition she needs to make to qualify? I'll take it. They began the "transitioning" of her nap schedule on Wednesday and today I received the following picture from the Day Care Director:

Her note read "So.....I think the nap time is catching up with her". I laughed so hard! I can't get this child to hardly lay down to go to sleep, let alone fall asleep somewhere other than her crib!

Rachel refuses baby food. She doesn't want to be fed, she wants to feed herself. So table food from now on it is! She does still take a bottle (which she insists on holding herself). This is awesome. Her teacher says that there are some kids that are over a year old and still don't do table food, and here Rachel will only eat table food. And she eats everything! Apparently yesterday she had 2 pieces of pizza. And regularly eats seconds. On Tuesday evening I stopped and got Taco Bell for our visit with my Grandma and she ate almost an entire taco on her own! I'm so proud of her.

She has started pinching, and I'm not thrilled with this development. If you pick her up, she'll grab a handful of your shirt to hang on to while you hold her. However, sometimes her hand will move and she ends up grabbing your skin with her thumb and index finger. Even if I keep her nails trimmed it still hurts!!

Her teacher also says she thinks Rachel will be a "girly girl", which thrills me. Not that there's anything wrong with her being any other way....but she loves dolls. LOVES them. She likes to gently pull books off of the shelf and sit and turn the pages on her own. Sometime she'll "talk" or coo as she does this and it almost looks like she's "reading" it. She doesn't like it when the other kids get rowdy, she likes it when they are calm. And when she has to be around the baby infants in the Infant 1 room, she's so very gentle with them.

I was also told that the teacher who runs the Toddler room had mentioned to Rachel's current teacher that she's excited for Rachel to transition up so she'll be in the new teacher's room because "She's so cute!" Now how good do you think that makes this mother feel? That teachers are already excited to have our daughter because they find her adorable as well.

She does have a sweet disposition....waving when people say hi, smiling when they smile at her....so far she doesn't seem to be too overly shy. However if she's babbling or talking, she'll instantly stop when someone new walks into the room. It takes just a little bit to warm up to them then she'll continue on.

She'll "blink" at you or give you a big cheesy grin for no reason....or raspberry at you for fun.

I've noticed that she constantly is trying to find ways to walk to an identified destination rather than crawling whenever possible. She'll find something with wheels or that's light enough she can push and use it to walk to where she wants to go.

This past weekend we picked out and purchased her new car seat and I may transition her to it earlier rather than later. Her current car seat has been adjusted out almost as far as I can adjust it and I don't have a winter coat on her yet. Now that it's getting colder I think I will need to go ahead and put her in the new car seat so she's got enough room under the straps for her to wear her coat!

Jason also got her a little baby laptop for her birthday. She loves to pull up and try to grab at the buttons on our laptops, so he wanted her to have her own. It's able to connect to our computers so we can put "e-mails" from us to her on there. It's such a sweet idea.

Just a few more weeks and she'll hit the big "01".

Mohawks

So a more textual update of Rachel....

She's standing up more on her own. And when I say that I mean tonight we were watching tv and realized that she just stood up on her two feet without pulling herself up and stood there as balanced as could be. We also got our second accident report at Day Care today. Apparently she was walking along the bookshelves that are in the middle of the room (they are very short, she can see over the top of them), lost her balance and hit her face on the shelf. Her teacher said that she didn't show any signs of bruising, but just in case she wanted me to know. Have I mentioned how much I really do love her Day Care?

In addition, 2 days in a row this week they've sent her home looking like this:

With a MOHAWK! I'm sure most parents wouldn't find it funny. I think it's hilarious. Her new teacher, Jessica, is really nice. She said she was cleaning her up after eating and she couldn't help but spike her hair since it's starting to come in. I swear, about 2 weeks ago she woke up and her hair was thicker. I kid you not. As I gave her a bath the night before I washed her hair and again was sad she still doesn't have much. The next morning I could tell it was thicker....and it hasn't really grown (noticeably) as much since. So they sent her home spiked up one day, we all laughed, then the next night I go to get her and they were giggling about it again. I love it! I love that they love to have fun with my girl. I love that at least 3 times a week I have at least one teacher tell me how cute she is or something funny they've appreciated that she's done.

I'm not sure if anyone else agrees with me, but I don't think Rachel's overly photogenic. And I don't say that she's not adorable. Quite the contrary. What I mean is (and I've thought this since she was a newborn) that photographs don't truly capture the "essence" of Rachel. Her personality, and especially her eyes, are what make this girl truly captivating. Everyone agrees that even though she can't communicate very well, she has a personality all her own. She smiles and expresses her frustration or thrills with her eyes. Still photos don't capture that, you really have to see her in person to see what I mean.

Oh! Music to a mother's ears! This past Tuesday she's started saying "Mama" again. I could care less if she's just babbling or if she means "Mom". The fact is, I'm hearing this phrase again and I am SOOOOO excited about it!

Other things she's doing (and I apologize if this is a repeat from a previous post....) she does hold her bottle all by herself now. And we've almost completely phased out all of her 9 month clothes and have started wearing more (but not all) of her 12 mo. clothes.

We give her a lot more table food and are starting to decrease her bottle intake. (The doctor said we should!) She's down to no more than 4 bottles a day, and I'm not sure yet if I can decrease to 3. (Rachel probably wouldn't hear of it). I've started feeding her these ravioli dishes by Gerber and although she kind of chokes while eating them, I'm noticing each time she eats a bowl of them she does better. She LOVES bananas and I'm thankful as that's one fruit that's easy to get at the grocery and is soft enough she can eat it.

Her favorite toys right now are her dolls. She still says "Dada or deetdeet" when she's playing with one. Her other favorite: photographs. She loves books. She loves the photos on the fridge. She loves the photo of the baby on the diaper package.

We've also started letting her watch Sesame Street and she's entranced. Last weekend I think I watched a total of 3 55 minute episodes in one day and she watched them with me. I wont' lie: I LOVE watching that show with her and I do get annoyed that about halfway through an episode she'll start to get tired and I have to pause it until she wakes up from a nap. I've never NOT loved Sesame Street, so being able to watch it with her brings no small amount of joy to this mama. Although Elmo is her favorite....and he isn't mine. So that's an area we'll suffer through with her....however I will take 100 Elmo's if it means we don't EVER have Barney in our house. By my own request, he's a banned character.

When she hears music, she's starting to dance and bounce rhythmically. She also will clap her hands.

Oh - did I mention she's figured out how to open cabinets? NOT my favorite development! I've at least managed to get a child-proof lock for the cabinet under the sink where the cleaning supplies are. But the other cabinets....no such luck. I've purchased several different types of child-proofing paraphernalia, but alas none of them will work on our cabinets. So I'm going to have to go out and try to find some more.

Her top two teeth are much more noticeable, although I still have to turn her upside down to see them. Tonight as I was doing just that, I noticed 2 more buds out to the side of the top 2 teeth that are coming in. Teeth # 5 & 6 are already starting to show! It won't be long now....I wonder if I think she'll look odd with teeth since it's been so long that we've seen her without them?

The past couple of weeks I've found myself sneaking in to her bedroom after we put her to sleep to check on her and I can't leave right away. I must touch her hair, her face and cover her with the blankets that she, most of the time, is laying on top of. She's so beautiful and just mesmerizing when she sleeps. I can't help myself. I'm so thankful for this small child that's going to turn a year old this month.

Halloween 2011

I searched high and low for the perfect costume for this girl. I think I found it!

Here's the best part of the costume that I didn't even realize when I purchased it: if you push the lion (that's on her tummy) on the nose, it roars!!!

She wore this thing for perhaps 30 minutes. I barely got a picture of her holding still because she was so wriggly and unhappy. We didn't get home until after 6:00 and she was so sleepy when we got home. I put her in her costume and we walked to see the lady next door. We said hi, chatted for a bit, then came right back home again. Rachel took a bottle and then wanted nothing more to do with being awake. She got a quick bath and was instantly in bed. Oh well....we'll do Halloween bigger next year.

Bibs

I'm a sucker for bib overalls. I had them as a child, I had them as a teenager and I still treasure a pair my roommate in college donated to me. So it should come as no surprise that I made sure our daughter had a pair of her very own. And last weekend I dressed her all up just so I could take a picture:

And I LOVE her little pink shoes! Found 'em for $1 at a garage sale. They don't stay on her feet, however, so they're just for me to enjoy how cute they are.