Elle's twelve-month (!?) stats

My dear sweet baby is 12 months old. (Well, 12 months and five days old.) HOW DID THIS HAPPEN?! Her well-baby visit has been rescheduled twice now, and the newest appointment is not for another 2.5 weeks, so I'll have to update the length and big ol' head size then. We stopped by the pediatrician's office today for a weight check, though, so that's at least current.

Weight (at 12 months): 21 pounds, 6 ounces
(showing that my estimate last month was probably total crap)

As of 12 months and three weeks old:

Weight: 22 pounds, 6 ounces (60 percentile)

Height: 30 inches (75 percentile)

Head: 47 cm (90 percentile)

Current developments include pulling up to standing and having improved balance and leg strength, talking (Mama, Dada, Baby, no, hi, bye bye, kee kee (kitty), giggle, ta-da, eye, hey, yeah, go, doggie, woof, meow, quack, hello, good girl, pretty, done, love you, bath), blowing kisses, lots of waving hi and bye, signing (milk, eat, more, done), pushing up on all fours, rockin' FIVE teeth, growing almost enough hair that I might be able to actually give her a little Pebbles Flintstone-like ponytail sometime in a month or two.

I am absolutely shocked at how fast her verbal skills are developing. Many of the words she says can probably only be understood by Tim and I, and they're often just parroted versions of what we just said. But doggie, baby, yeah, hi, go, giggle, eye ... words like those come out crystal clear. "Pretty" sounds a little bit more like "Bissy." "Good girl" is a bit hard to understand, too, unless you know what you're listening for. "Bath" is "baff." "Love you" is "wuv wu." "No" is finally sounding more like "no" and less like "naw." "Ta-da!" is "Da-da!" - she uses the right inflection, though, so we roll with it. (I've got a ton of videos of her talking, too, that I'll share in a future post.)

I've heard and read countless times that babies usually surge on their verbal OR motor skills at one time, and not usually both at the same time. I've seen this demonstrated by numerous kids Elle's age in our playgroups over the last few months and find it absolutely fascinating. Most of the kids we know that are 11-13 months old aren't talking all that much but are walking like they've been doing it for years. Elle, on the other hand, has no interest in walking yet but seems to pick up a new word or three every day.

At first, every animal Elle saw was a "kee kee." Every animal went "woof!" or "eow." But now, she almost always knows what a puppy looks like. She's such a little sponge, and although I know I might not be the most impartial person on the subject, I think she's a total genius. She's picking stuff out of books - pointing to certain animals, requesting that certain books be read again ... and again ... and again.

These teeth have been anything but fun. Elle (and therefore, Tim and I) had a few nights of rough sleep - crying out, waking up, etc. One night, she woke up and decided she missed us. (It was soon after our return from Ohio.) So she stayed up from 12:30 a.m. until about 5 a.m. She was playful and happy, but if you so much as looked at her with the possibility of sleep in your eyes, she screamed bloody murder. For a few nights last week, it was obvious that she was having a hard time sleeping because of the pain. The drool from the teething also brought MASSIVE AMOUNTS of poo. One day, she pooped seven times. For about five days in a row, she woke up with a poopy diaper. This was not a fun time in our household. Fortunately, things seem to have (temporarily, at least) returned to normal.

The crib mattress was lowered to it's lowest setting on the day before her birthday. Coincidentally, that was also the day I kind of taught her how to pull up completely on the crib rail, so if I hadn't been planning on lowering it, I had to after that stunt. Oopsie. I actually moved all of the nursery furniture around on that day (it's like baby feng shui!) and made a new craft - I'll share the new set up in a post in the next few days.

Current loves include "patting" the cats, "motoring" around the condo (this involves having an object under one or both hands and pushing them around while crawling), having "conversations" with her toys, pressing buttons to make the toys sing, getting in to the pantry and kitchen cabinets, playing with magnets. 

Current nicknames include Elle Belle, Ellie Bean, Baby Boo, Boo Boo, Mimi and Baby Bear. 

Current habits include nursing/taking a bottle three to four times a day, sleeping 11-13 hours a night, napping two times a day for a  total of 1.5-3 hours, eating solids three times a day with an occasional snack.