She's 69 and 78 and Getting Married Today

You might've heard: Rosalind turned a year old yesterday. What the what. It has been an INCREDIBLY long, challenging year. But also rewarding, interesting, and I've learned a lot about a lot. Let's be as vague as possible, shall we?

For her birthday, I invited over my parents and Sam's parents for a little shin dig involving strawberry cupcakes that I made from scratch (which involved only two strawberry-purée explosions to begrudgingly clean up). We also opened presents (by we I mean me on behalf of Ros, of course). Then there was a bath and lots of crying, and then grandparents went home. Good times!

Of note lately:

Ros is now 22.5 pounds and 30 inches tall. She hasn't changed much at all in the past few months. I think she used to weigh more, but she didn't eat much the past couple weeks when she was sick, poor thing. She still has rolls to spare, but I can tell she's leaning out a bit. 

She has 7 teeth now: the front two on top, the front four on the bottom, and her bottom left molar (fun fun fun when that came in). I think she might also be getting her next front top right incisor, but I'm not sure.

She's almost down to just one nap a day, which, since she's in transition, makes it tough to gauge when she's really tired, and she is usually VERY ready to go to bed at 6pm. Still sort of early, but hey, I'm not complaining since she goes right to sleep and doesn't make a peep til 7am (usually...I probably just jinxed myself). I don't think she's ready to ween quite yet, since she still asks for a bottle three or four times a day, but that's fine. I will let her take her time on that one since I enjoy bottle time.

She cruises everywhere. She has been known a handful of times to stand on her own, and will walk if you hold her hands. She doesn't like rolling much anymore, but does it when necessary. She also learned to crawl on her hands and knees a week or two ago, but she only does it about a foot or so at a time, at most (she mostly army crawls). She can't really pull up to standing, but she can pull up to kneeling, so that's a start I guess. She also can't get into sitting position from lying down. This girl, I tell you.

Ros loves to read books with you, and takes great pride in turning the pages for you. She also loves to stack things, put things on shelves and into baskets, take out things from where they go, and cause general destruction. This morning she pulled a heavy thing onto herself, which knocked her back so that she hit her head, and I about had a heart attack, but she didn't even cry. Tough kid! She is persistent in refusing to dance, but she does mimic me doing yoga (which is hilarious...she has about 3 moves), and loves when people sing.

Ros knows lots of words (relatively speaking). She says "uh oh" all day err day and it's hilarious. She says "hi" and can wave "hi" and "bye." She has once or twice said "mama" but I don't know if she got the context. Sometimes she calls Sam "DA!" She also says "bwuh" or more like "bw" for book and sometimes button, and says "pw" or "puh" for diaper sometimes too. She stopped saying "ah da" for all done when she got sick over Christmas, but has recently started saying "ah ah" instead (and more often lately she has started using the sign for "all done" instead). Weird regression there. Oh, and she says a whispered "sah" when saying things like "what/who is that?" She also knows the sign for "bottle" (we use the sign for "milk" instead because it's easier for her)-- which she also uses for water, and "more," and will grab her chest when we tell her to fold her arms. She also points at everything and claps when she is happy or excited.

She is curious about everything and totally gets into trouble exploring about a thousand times a day. She doesn't like being left alone to play anymore unless she's really distracted, which is a huge bummer for me. She'll still do it if she can at least see you, but that's harder to do in our new place. Maybe she's just not used to it yet.

She loves her bunny rabbit, and she knows it lives in the crib and she can only have it while sleeping, but I still catch her trying to pull it through the bars so she can snuggle it. Speaking of which, she snuggles everything by cocking her head and pressing it to her ear (and sometimes patting it on the back). I even saw her doing it to her fork during dinner the other day. Weirdo.

Anyway, Ros is a hilarious and cuddly kid and I like her a lot. Like I mentioned, she got really sick for about two weeks over Christmas, and that made it difficult, but she's mostly all better now, so she's back to her cheerful self again. There are times recently when she just cries and cries that remind me hauntingly of her colicky days, but those are just in the past couple of weeks and she is always either hungry or tired in those cases. I'm just still learning those things since obviously she can't tell me when she wants food because she refuses to learn the sign for "eat." ANYWAY. I still like her. I'm nervous but excited to have her be a toddler with more personality and preference. Yikes!