Thirteen Months!

Rachel you are thirteen months old!

I weighed you yesterday and you weighed 18 pounds, 9 1/2 ounces. That's right -- you didn't gain any weight this month. Oh well. Your legs are awesome in size compared to the rest of you. You still wear a size three diaper and 12 or 12-18 month clothes. You are still in size 12 month sleepers.

You go to bed around 8:30 or 9 and you sleep through the night most of the time now. Once in awhile you have a bad night but those are getting rarer and rarer. You 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. Even if you're asleep when we put you down, you wake up, cry, sit up, crawl to the other end of your crib and fall asleep. It's very funny!

You are really phasing out your morning nap, especially if you wake up late. You wake up anywhere between 7:30 and 9:30. When you wake up at 7:30 you like a half hour morning nap around 10:30 or 11. You still take an awesome afternoon nap at about 2. And you usually sleep at least two, and sometimes three, hours.

You still have nine teeth. And there's not much else to say about the teething side of things. They'll come when they are good and ready.

You eat the same thing for breakfast -- a banana with plain yogurt and Cheerios. Lunches are a little random these days. Sometimes you have Kraft dinner, sometimes you have bread and cheese. I find lunch is a hard meal for me to figure out for you. For supper you just eat what we're eating, usually with your fingers off your tray.

You hardly nurse at all anymore Miss Rachel. You nurse about once every two days. I am not ready to make the decision yet that you are weaned but you're getting very close. You really like drinking water out of your sippy cups although your preference is to hold them upside down which isn't very useful :)

You are talk and yell and coo and sing and scream but you still don't have clear words. You like playing games, clapping your hands and blowing kisses. You make noise and we can't wait for real words to start appearing.

You like to pull yourself up to standing against things but don't like to stand on your own. When we "help" you stand alone, you get scared and start to cry, which is actually kind of funny :) You really like to stand at the piano and play and sing. We think you will be a composer. (Well you already are a composer!). Your preferred position is definitely standing. You have started crawling in a more regular formation -- two hands and two knees but your Rachel-style crawl with a foot involved still makes an appearance when you want to get somewhere fast!

You love Sam and he loves you. You two play together so well and, except for the big messes you make, Mommy loves watching you together. He makes you laugh and you talk so much together. One of your favourite games lately is when you sit in your crib and Sam drops board book after board book into your crib. This game entertains you as long as there are books around.

You like playing with the shoes on the shoe rack, doing anything in Sam's room, standing at the water table outside, and reading books to yourself. I love watching you discover books Rachel.

You are getting so much bigger everyday Rachel. It's hard to believe that last summer you were such a little baby. We love you so very much and look forward to every day together.