My baby is no longer a baby. Well, OK she is. She still has these moments when she’s still my little baby, but lately, she’s much more toddler-like.
Like, she’s really coming into her personality and looks at you like she understands. This morning, I was pulling her shirt over her head and she was helping me get it off. We got ourselves a big girl around here.
Nicknames: Mealie, Mealie Moo, Meals, Squish
Weight: 18.4 lbs (she appears to not have gained any weight since her 12 month check)
Length: 29.5 inches (nothing gained)
Diaper size: 4
Shoe/clothing size: 3 / 12 months
Teeth: 6 (four upper, two lower)
Eating
She’s really taken off with eating. In fact, it’s now one of her favorite things ever besides screeching. Dinner is insanity. She knows when we’re making food, which means making food for her, and she’ll sit down by our legs as we’re cooking and scream at us. We’ll put her in her high chair which kind of works as long as you have something to distract her with, which would be more food. And if I’m eating something on the couch, she’ll beeline it over and push herself to stand so she can screech at me until I shove some of whatever it is I have into her pie hole. Yes. Lots of eating going on around here.
But really, she’s gotten so amazing at eating. She’s not the same baby she was five months ago. She hardly ever gags on food, even the ones that used to give her trouble. She totally loved the butternut squash chipotle chili (Olivia tried it for the first time when she was about Emelia’s age and loved it just as much.) and loves fruit like her big sister. Actually, I’ve noticed she’s into sweets more than her sister. I’ve had to start giving her her non-sweet foods first, otherwise, she’ll gobble up, say, her mandarin oranges, and leave say her peanut butter toast. I’m feeding her mostly three meals a day give or take depending on how busy it is. Breakfast is usually peanut butter toast with a fruit, or eggs and mini pancakes. Or, you know, Cheerios in a snack cup. Lunch whatever one of us is having, deli meat and cheese, toast, leftovers, bagel pizzas, chicken nuggets, grilled cheese. She eats the same dinners we have. She especially loves pizza, tacos, meatballs, spaghetti, alfredo, chili, baked beans, roasted squash, mandarin oranges, pear slices, shrimp. She’s willing to try everything, but I can tell her has her preferences.
She’s nursing once a night (sometimes two) and she’s really good at going right back to sleep after. Some people with talking in our Babies class about bad habits and using nursing as a means to wake up at night. But it’s so much easier just to nurse her for 15 minutes and then go right back to sleep than it would be if Chris tried to walk her around to go back to sleep. Doesn’t work. Screams too much. Sleep is precious. So nursing it is.
She’s nursing six times a day, including right before bed, and has gotten into the acrobatic stage of nursing. Flipping. Sliding off my lap. Standing upside down. 95% of the time she’ll be nursing peacefully for five to ten seconds and then will fling off (usually backward), flip over and crawl away as fast as she can. And there’s no reason for this. I’ll tackle her, drag her back, lay her back on my lap and she’ll happily nurse again. Bonus points if she glares at me and screeches like I was the one to take her off in the first place.
Sleeping
Bedtime nursing is so different than with Olivia. Emelia continues to hardly ever (like I can probably count on two hands) fall asleep while nursing. So it really doesn’t matter if she nurses for ten minutes for thirty (it depends on what I’m looking at on my phone) she won’t look a bit tired. In fact, I spend the first half just trying to keep her on my lap and not sliding off feet first or popping up and kamikaze-ing off. Eventually, she’ll settle down, but she won’t close her eyes and fall asleep on me. Ever. So the rare time she does, it’s extra precious.
Luckily, the two or three-time wake-ups at night have gone back to one. Usually. She goes down around 7:00 pm, and usually just fusses and cries a few minutes. She usually wakes up anywhere from 6:30 to 7:30 for the day, but sometimes will sleep in until 8:30. Usually, this is when she has a later wakeup, like 5:30 to nurse.
She loves getting her six teeth brushed at night now. We’ll usually do a book or two. It depends on how fussy she’s being. She does love getting baths in the evening. She sleeps with her white noise still and has a little night light that shines stars for about 15 minutes.
Naps have been a hit or miss. In fact, I wonder if she is ready to go to one nap a day. I’M not ready, mind you, but there’s days she’ll fight sleep, and then days she’ll take two two-hour naps. But right now, she’s still on the two a day.
Milestones
Emelia is now crawling consistently and hardly ever army crawls anymore. And she’s FAST. She dances, waves, and is cruising furniture like a champ. She can climb stairs wicked fast. She’s still leading with her left leg when standing up, so we’ve been trying to work on that in PT. The fireplace mantel was a delightful climbing object until we blocked the entire thing off with baby jail. That’s right. We got Olivia’s old baby jail out of the shed, dusted it off, and now it keeps Emelia from CONSTANTLY climbing up onto the mantel. The issue was that she’d not only climb it but then would climb onto the ottoman from there and try to suicide off if we weren’t constantly there catching her and putting back onto the floor and then from there she’d crawl back over to the mantel and up onto the ottoman again and this is the song that never ends!!!!! Yes, it goes on and on my FRIENDS!!!!
Communication
I’m adding in this category, but somehow this baby seems more toddlerish lately, and her communication has exploded. She loves handing us stuff, which is really convenient now. She used to put everything in her mouth, but now she’ll at least hand it to us most of the time. Carpet lint, dog hair, small pieces of paper, you name it. She really seems to understand more and more what we’re saying. My favorite is when I ask her where Olivia is and she’ll get this small smile and start looking around. Or she’ll do this thing where I’ll talk to her and she’ll tilt her head and smile and it’s the exact look Olivia gave me at this age.
She does this adorable shy face when people outside of her little family talk to her. She’ll smile and lay her head into me. I swear she says, “Up” when she wants to be picked up, but that could be my imagination. She will hand us books and kicks her legs excitedly when we start reading them to her. In fact, she kicks her legs and waves her arms when we walk into the room and her whole face breaks into a wide smile. She loves squeaking when she’s happy.
Activities
I decided to include this category, but it looks nothing like when Olivia was a baby. Emelia finished her babies class a few weeks ago and started a new one that she’s taking with Olivia where they get time in the ECFE gym and we separate from them for parent time. I wondered how she would do because she hasn’t really been away from me much and that’s always because she’s with her dad. But she did really well for it, probably because her sister was there too.
Other than that, she loves her being in the stroller, so we’ve mall walked, and went on a few outdoor walks lately.
Health
We’ve been fortunate to be healthy so far this fall. She’ll have days where she’ll cough more than usual, but nothing comes of it.
Her teething hasn’t seemed too bad. She likes chewing on her cold silicone teether, but I haven’t given much Motrin at night, or the teething gel, though granted, since they discontinued the Oragel, I’ve noticed the Zarbees we use now doesn’t seem to do much.
Likes
A cup of cheerios, eating, being held, playing with Olivia, being chased, playing with her books, getting her teeth brushed, stroller rides, climbing things, blocks.
Dislikes
Being put down, when Mom walks into the room and doesn’t immediately go to pick her up, having something taken away, looking in her mouth for teeth, fishing out things she stuck in her mouth.
I can’t believe how much she’s developed in the last six weeks. I can’t believe she’s more toddler than baby now. There’s a certain sadness to that, like when I remember when I used to strip her down and tuck her into my tank top in the evenings and she’d sleep skin to skin on me while I watched TV. Or you know, when I could lay her down literally anywhere and she wouldn’t go anywhere. Those were the days. However, seeing her play with her sister and have them entertain each other is pretty awesome too.
See more of Emelia’s monthly updates here.
