Twelve Months!!!

Rachel you are twelve months old!

Yes, you are ONE FULL YEAR OLD!

Well you didn't quite triple your birth weight by a year but you have gained weight. You are now 18 pounds, 9 1/2 ounces. You still have the chubbiest legs and cute cheeks too! You wear a size three diaper now and 12 or 12-18 month clothes. You are still in size 12 month sleepers. You have pretty much outgrown most of your 6-12 month clothes in this past month.

You still sleep through the night most nights. I would say about five out of every six nights you sleep through. At eleven months it was maybe three out of four so you are getting better. You still go down with a bottle of milk and if Daddy is putting you down he sings to you and Mommy puts on the Kindermusik lullaby CD. You don't usually cry very much before you fall asleep either which is nice.

You aren't as regular with your first nap as you used to be. Sometime you need a half hour or hour long nap in the mornings but then you still take a GREAT afternoon nap at about 2. And you usually sleep at least two, and sometimes three, hours. I think you will soon be down to only one nap a day. A couple of days (usually on Saturdays when Daddy is home, thankfully!) you haven't napped AT ALL. We are not pleased with those no-nap days Miss Rachel!

You have nine teeth now! You got one of your one year molars just last week. You were fussy for a few days and then I was feeling to see if you had teeth back there and you bit me :) I hope the rest of your molars are less painful when they come in.

You still eat the same things for breakfast and lunch usually (a banana with plain yogurt and Cheerios for breakfast, an avocado and cottage cheese for lunch). For supper we just feed you what we're eating. You still like to eat and you like it best when you can feed yourself. On Sunday for your birthday you got a whole cupcake with icing and LOVED it :)

You hardly nurse at all anymore Miss Rachel. And most of the time when you do, you bite me so nursing ends pretty quickly. I wonder if you will still be nursing next month? You still like to nurse at night if you wake up though but that's becoming more of a rare occurrence.

You are a talker but still don't have a lot of clear words. You say, "ya ya ya" and "ma ma ma" and "da da da" but usually only if prompted. This past month you saw Oma and Opa on Skype and got SOOOOO excited! You were definitely trying to tell them something and you were very emphatic about it! You made us all laugh and laugh. You really like hiding behind your hands and someone saying, "Oh no! Where did Rachel go?" then you peek out and we say, "There she is!" and you laugh and laugh. You have also started blowing kisses and it is sooo cute. You have also started giving Mommy and Daddy kisses on our legs as we're sitting, but sometimes you get a little enthusiastic and bite us instead. Ooops.

You are definitely crawling everywhere --still on your hands, your left knee and then you push yourself forward with your right foot! It's pretty funny to watch you go fast! You have pulled yourself up to standing a few times -- at Sam's bed and table, at the coffee table and at the piano. In fact yesterday you were reaching the piano keys and you were pretty proud of yourself. You also push yourself up on your hands and feet sometimes so I think you might be getting closer to standing on your own. Also just today I came into the house and you had crawled up the first stair to upstairs. And this afternoon you climbed up the porch stairs while Oma just held your dress out of the way. I wasn't ready for this stage yet.

You and Sam have been getting along so well these days. He loves to have you play in his room with him and you are so happy there. He can also make you laugh a lot, even when Daddy is washing you up after a meal. It's so much fun to watch you play together.

I can't believe you are a year old already Rachel. This past year has gone so fast in some ways and you have changed soooo much from that little baby we held just one year ago. We love you so very much.