Are you ready for gobs of photos? Because this girl is ONE. And we celebrated her birthday as a family after a highly successful COVID party with her sister this past weekend. Emelia has exploded in her development this month, and she’s into everything. I can’t keep up with her anymore. Even diaper changes are a handful since her favorite game is slithering away from me as fast as possible once her diaper is off. It’s so bad that Chris has to be the one to corral her half the time to force her to be diapered again. Woof. Busy, I tell you.
We did a little family celebration yesterday on her actual birthday, complete with party tiaras, much to Olivia’s delight. I picked up Chipotle and Emelia enjoyed a cheese quesadilla and some of my chicken bowl.
We had leftover cake from the party and I used the “1” candle I had kept from Olivia’s first birthday. She didn’t know what to make of us all singing to her, much less watching her sister blow out a flame, but she sure enjoyed her piece of cake.
Singing controller from her sister A nightlight like her big sister Her new farm!
We opened presents. Olivia got her a singing video game controller, and she opened up a farm set, a stuffed animal that shoots stars onto the ceiling (like her sister’s), a little baby stuffed into a peapod, called a SweetPea, and a pull train wooden animal thing. Her daddy got her a baby just like he did with Olivia, and at first, she didn’t care since Dad took the singing controller away. Once sister showed interest in it though, she was hooked.
Making a dive to find her noisey controller But finally an interest in her baby doll
She had her well-child exam today which Chris took her to, and her pediatrician commented on her weight dropping below the 50th percentile, but then Chris was telling her how much she was moving around like a banshee these days. She commented on how Emelia isn’t taking steps, but then said if PT is following her and not concerned, then it’s OK, later commenting that, as her PT also said, they don’t worry about it until 16 months. If I didn’t have the confidence I did, I can see how parents can spiral after these appointments. In fact, I was talking with a friend awhile back who was telling me the story of her friend taking her baby in at the 12 month check and the doctor shaming her because her baby wasn’t walking. Never mind that her baby was three months premature, and 12 months is an acceptable time for a baby not yet walking. The shame and guilt is fierce in parenting. But Chris said she did awesome with her vaccines and blood draw, saying she probably cried for thirty seconds (she would have lost her shit if it had been her mama in attendance).
Nicknames: Meals, Mealie, Bug Bug, Squishy, Squish
Weight: 18.4 lbs (25th percentile)
Length: 29.25 inches (53rd percentile)
Head circumference: 45 cm (53rd percentile)
Teeth: 4
Diaper size: 4
Clothing size: 12 months
Eating
She has exploded in her eating this month. Hamburger, which used to give her such trouble is no longer an issue at all. She hasn’t gagged at all on anything and has really started eating versus playing with it. This month she tried pear slices, prunes (to help her poop), kiwi, fried eggs, BBQ meatballs (a YOUGE hit), spaghetti and meatballs (previously she wasn’t eating the meatballs because they made her gag too much), parmesan chicken strips, turkey, stuffing, corn, salmon and asparagus, garlic bread, lasagna, sloppy joes, and waffles.
She eats at least two meals a day, and I’m working on getting to three. Baby-led weaning is MESSY, y’all. Sippy cups? Still sucks at them.
She’s still nursing about six times throughout the day and one to two times at night. Luckily, there’s not much more pinching, but she’s now into the “pounding the ketchup bottle” stage of nursing. Bonus points if it’s a large or hard object that she can slam into my chest repeatedly. I’ve needed to keep her hands busy with toys, but she is into this thing now where she’ll nurse for a moment before flinging herself up and scooting away from me as fast as she can. Particularly if we’re on the couch and it’s fair game to dive-bomb off, making me grab whatever part of her body I can to haul her back up again.
Sleeping
Still sucks. Actually, it’s been quite the shit show this month. Her naps are now more like an hour or hour and fifteen minutes when they used to be longer. She rarely falls asleep nursing before bed and loves to protest (loudly) most nights. The worst is she’s up twice a night a lot of nights when previously it was just one. The evening of her birthday party, she was up three times. And she doesn’t fall asleep with me often as Olivia did. She’ll nurse and then sit up and squeal like it’s 8 in the morning instead of 3 am. It’s a good thing she’s now sandwiched between us so she doesn’t kamikaze off. In fact, I’ve taken to complaining to Chris in the middle of the night after her second wake up that she’s trying to kill me. Whether it’s teething or developmental, we’ve been caving and giving more Motrin before bed, which helps, but not always. She goes down around 7:00 pm and wakes for the day around 6:30-7:00. One time she slept in until 9:00 am, but that’s a unicorn. Still two naps a day.
Milestones
She’s still favoring her left side when sitting up, but her therapist is happy with the progress she’s making. In fact, I feel bad because I was telling people she was delayed, but she’s not. Her therapist just clarified that she wants to make sure she stays on track so that she doesn’t fall behind. She isn’t crawling (actually just a few days ago we were outside playing in the leaves and she didn’t want to slither on her belly on the cold ground so she crawled. For the first time. And then not since. Leading me to believe she just won’t do it at all because she doesn’t feel like it. She has great reciprocal movement on both sides when army crawling, so her therapist isn’t concerned. She’s now pulling to stand, and we’re working on helping her cruise. But she’ll stand in her crib and pack n play. She is working on stairs and does great practicing with climbing the couch cushions in therapy. We’re continuing once a month virtual physical therapy.
She loves playing SOOOOO BIG and putting her arms in the air and then clapping with us. I love how she’s mimicking us. She gives high fives. She’s also into EVERYTHING. I can’t accomplish anything when she’s awake because she’s either stuffing carpet fuzzies in her mouth or knock over the dog dish, or scoot into the bathroom to do god knows what. She’s busy. Into everything. Baby-proofing needing.
Speech
I added in a new category now as Emelia is getting more vocal. She says Mama, Da, and MMMMMMOOOOMMMMM and loves saying her Bs. She loves to scream (when she’s angry, which is 99% of the day) and squeals when she’s excited.
Health
She’s probably teething. Maybe. I don’t see any swollen gums, and she still has the four teeth, but she’s been drooling the last few days when she hasn’t done that in months and will pull at her ears, though I think she does this when she’s tired. I actually brought her into the doctor and I hardly ever do that, because I wasn’t sure if this was an ear infection (it wasn’t). Motrin seems to help for the most part at night.
Activities
I added this category, but it’s going to be pretty sparse because COVID has ruined everything. She is in a babies class through ECFE that will go for six weeks. There are three other parents in there, and we wear masks, and everything is sanitized after. But she’s now at the age where everything is fascinating and she’s doing so well. She loves staring at the other babies and does so well scooting away from me to observe everyone around her. She loves circle time and singing songs. I’ve missed this so much. Hopefully, this winter we can do the class for one-year-olds since another of my favorite ECFE teachers is teaching it. But if this was a normal world, I’d be doing the ECFE playtimes, and the library storytimes, as I did with Olivia. So this bit of normalcy once a week has been so nice.
Likes
Eating, nursing, pulling to stand, going on walks, baths with her sister, getting into things she shouldn’t, putting gross things in her mouth like dog hair and carpet pieces, being chased by her sister, pulling books out of her bookshelf, being in sister’s room until she’s not welcome anymore, trying to suicide off the stairs, grabbing the dog bowl (bonus points if it’s full and water goes everywhere), touch and feel books, her sister, and being held all the time.
Dislikes
Being put down, being placed into the high chair and the food doesn’t come RIGHTNOW, being put down, having something really fun taken from her like an electrical cord or used underwear, being put down.
Undecided about
Car rides, masks, bedtime, diaper changes.
Looking forward to
Celebrating her actual birthday, hopefully making it to the apple orchard, and continuing her babies class. I’m planning on moving to updates every six weeks since as I learned with Olivia, there are just so many changes in the second year. But right now, I’m planning on enjoying my squishy one year old and getting out for all the autumn walks we can while it’s still nice.
The night before her first birthday, I was nursing her in the dark in the glider, and thinking about how at that time last year, my labor was really starting to ramp up, and she’d be born a little after 4:00 am the next morning. It’s been a wild ride. I can’t wait to see what Emelia’s second year brings.
Wow. What a year. What a brilliant birthday. What a gorgeous girl. She looks so much like her big sister in some of these pics!
Author
I think so too!
Aw that’s such a sweet nursing photo. Her little hand! <heart>
Author
Gah! Baby hands are the best.