Oak Knoll Avenue

Friday, December 21, 2012

I can't believe it, our little munchkin turned 1 on Monday. We survived the infant stage and we now have a walking and babbling toddler! This year has been the absolute best year of my life and I have a feeling that it will just keep getting better as I continue to grow into motherhood. My little family is just everything to me.

Elise is amazing. She is curious, interactive, observant, playful, goofy, laid-back, and active. Here are a few of her recent antics:

at mealtime, she takes a few bites of her finger foods, and then throws the rest on the ground
she grabs her cheeks and then shakes her head vigorously
she points at everything and says "dat!" as she discovers her new world
she runs to mommy and daddy with arms wide open with a huge smile on her face
she cuddles with all of her stuffed animals, especially her bunny
she stands next to us when we're lying in bed and then slams down on our stomachs over and over again while giggling (actually, she's been doing this for several months)
she points to trees and says "tree" with a baby accent
she imitates words and sounds and body movements
she explores like crazy when she's in new environments
she laughs at her own burps and then tries to force more burps (unsuccessfully)
she intentionally sips water only to spit it out
she rapidly fills her mouth with peas, only to shoot it out onto daddy's face

At her 1 year appointment, she received a book from her doctor. She opened it immediately and on the first page was a picture of a duck. She pointed to it and said "duck" and the doctor was totally amazed. I tried to explain to him that it's like her favorite word but he insisted that she was very interactive and smart. She continued to flip the pages and point to objects and assign different words to them. He was pretty impressed. I'm so excited about the talking stage!

Here are her 1 year appointment stats:
weight: 22 pounds (65th percentile)
height: 29 inches (50th percentile)

Elise has really chunky thighs and a huge belly. It is too cute. Some pics:

Picking a book for our new tradition of picking out a book for your birthday!

This is the first book Elise chose.

The last monthly sticker photo!

Smash cake all ready to be smashed into!

Someone looks excited to pound into her special cake.

She did not really enjoy it. Just took a few tastes, smeared on her face, and then walked away.

Feeling melancholy after some good smashing

Tuesday, December 11, 2012

Zara Sale

I am seriously counting down the days until Zara's semi-annual sale. It is supposed to happen either before or after Christmas and I am kind of nervous that I will be in Michigan when it happens. It is my favorite kid's clothing store but I can't afford their full-priced items. I love baby girl clothes!

Monday, December 10, 2012

language update

before I forget, Elise's language progress so far:

-- can say mama and dada (but not necessarily on cue), duck (duh!), ball (bah!), up (puh!), all done (duh!), and she has said a bunch of words once or twice like hi, blue, yellow, bye, leche, etc. her language has really began to pick up in the last week. i was trying to teach her blue and yellow a few days ago and we heard her say both pretty clearly but she wouldn't repeat it.

-- she understands a lot more. when we ask her to get her bunny, she gets it. when i sing "you are my sunshine", she sticks her finger into her cheek since it is one of the hand motions. she points to her head, nose, and mouth (but doesn't always get nose right). she definitely knows "neh-neh" and always signs for it while nursing. she is starting to sign for "more" and "all done". i'm not very good with teaching her sign language.

we used to be godparents for a baby and we were reminiscing last night that things got really fun right after a year and she was doing new things everyday. i'm going to try to update elise's progress as it transpires.

oh, and elise is a full on walker now. she still craws a little when she wants to quickly get to something, but she prefers walking over crawling. we're kind of in shock.

Sunday, December 9, 2012

Nursing anniversary

As Elise's 1 year birthday approaches, so does our 1 year anniversary of our nursing relationship, or at least, anniversary of trying to nurse since it took a few months to get it established. As I reflect back on this year, I think I experienced a true God-given miracle with breastfeeding. I won't hash out all the details again, but in short, I had every card stacked against me and I even had two lactation consultants basically tell me to switch to formula. Elise would not latch or stay latched and I had very little milk. But somehow we prevailed and, with the help of some medication and prayer, we were able to nurse effortlessly after about 3 months.

Sometimes when I think about her newborn days, I feel a sting of sadness because I feel like I was so consumed with breastfeeding that I feel like I couldn't really relish those early days. Everyday, I was pumping like crazy, driving to all sorts of different clinics and appointments, reading everything I could online, reading several books, etc. I was basically obsessed.

But in the grand scheme of things, I guess it was worth it because nursing has been one of the highlights of motherhood for me. Elise absolutely loves it. Right now, I mostly nurse her before naps and bedtime, and so I side-lie nurse her. She knows it is coming when I take her into our bedroom and she immediately starts giggling and hyperventilating in excitement. It's so cute! When she latches, she pounces on me and nurses while smiling for the first few seconds. Sometimes we make eye contact and giggle together.

I always assumed I would nurse for a year and then switch to cow's milk. But seeing now how much Elise adores nursing, I don't think I can stop this. The World Health Organization recommends nursing for at least two years! I don't think I'll go longer than 2 years, but I definitely have enough energy to go at least another 6 months for bedtime and morning. I'm going to wean daytime feeds, however, because I want to stop pumping. Breastmilk still provides a lot of immunological benefits that other milks do not provide. That, and since Elise is allergic to dairy, all the alternative milks I've looked into have some sort of drawback, be it hormones, carrageenan, or lacking crucial vitamins.