13 Months (late!)

I put off writing this because these monthly posts are so hard to keep up with (especially on time!) but I don't want to forget all of the milestones that my baby girl is hitting.  I'm afraid that if I don't update then I will miss it all and it will fly by even faster than it is!  But monthly pictures are just a pain (even though I secretly kind of want to still take them) and finding all of the cute pictures from the past month on my computer is daunting too, although I will do my best (now that I have BlogStomp!).  (Of course, when I started to find pictures for this post I decided I couldn't leave any out so I included them all.  I didn't, however, do videos because I'm tired of the moving ones that Blogger turns your videos into and I don't have time to find and upload, the slow way, each one I want to post.  Maybe later.)

I thought I would write these posts with listed (dated) achievements, instead of with every single thing we've done this month.  That means if I do something super exciting, I will have to save it for a post all it's own (ugh!).  Working full time (in our 4th week of school!), grading papers and being a mama doesn't allow for a lot of blogging but I will try my hardest.  So, bear with me my loyal readers!

Last week, when we took Lemon to the mall to walk around (to tire her out before dinner) she looked like a big girl to me.  She is thinning out, losing her baby chub, and is getting so much better (and faster!) at walking.  I looked at her in her little outfit and thought to myself, "who is this kid?"  Time goes way too fast as a mother, and as a working mama, that much faster.  Where did my baby go?

Some achievements over this past month (although there have been SO many, I didn't get a chance to write them all down!):

7.13.13          You started mimicking the sound Ian makes when counting the 10 Little Fish book.  It sounds like you're really counting!

7.14.13          Today you were leaning on the ottoman, standing on the floor, and you folded your arms, laid your head to one side and yawned a big yawn, out loud.  It was the cutest.

7.16.13          You roll around so much in your sleep now, sometimes even rolling onto your back!  You don't sleep with a blanket, because you move too much to keep it on, but there are toys in your crib in case you wake up.  Although when you wake up, still, you play with absolutely nothing and just cry instead, waiting for your daddy to come in and rub your back to put you back to sleep.

7.22.13          The carpet in the condo while we were in Encinitas allowed you to take more steps on your own.  You didn't really start walking without holding on to things until we got there and I didn't believe my mom when we left you to go kayaking and she said you'd been walking all over the place!  I think the carpet made you less afraid and you stopped holding onto things too.  You took about 10 steps at first and by the time we left were walking everywhere, even though you were still falling on your butt every couple of minutes.  You were SO proud of yourself, cracking up and gasping with every step!  (See videos here.) 

8.7.13           The other day you started dropping food on the floor for the dogs and your daddy yelled at you and you cried so much you couldn't finish dinner.  Tonight you stood up in your high chair, got yelled at again, cried for a second, but this time you stopped crying and yelled back at your daddy through your tears and in gibberish.  I had to walk away because it was so funny!  We started strapping your in your high chair from that moment forward.

8.8.13            You went to your first movie today with your new nanny, Ashley, and you saw Despicable Me 2.  You sat on her lap and watched the whole thing, you loved it.

8.14.13          Today you did "home alone" all by yourself when your daddy said it to you.  You put your hands up on your face and yelled with your mouth open.  After that you do it all the time.  You also looked longer and leaner to me today.

8.15.13          I was sitting on the ground, in your room, tonight and you walked up to me and sat down on my knee, you just plopped down.

You are walking all over the house and I feel like I need to put a bell on you because you move so fast!  You still take some falls (thank goodness for cloth diapers as butt cushions!) but you are getting so good at balancing.  

You love all the computer animated Pixar/Disney movies we've shown you like Brave, Frankenweenie and Wall-E but your favorite is still Hotel Transylvania even though you also love Nemo and Tangled.

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This month was such a BIG DEAL because Lemon started WALKING (see this post for her first walking videos)!  And now she walks non stop.  She hardly plays with her toys anymore, just walks back and forth from room to room - toddling, talking and smiling.  She usually holds an object like a ball (these she will hold for HOURS) or one of her Little People princesses.  She also loves her play measuring spoons, wish, can opener and her magnetic refrigerator letters.  At first I thought it was a comfort thing but now I'm thinking it's for balance because she used to hold two things and now it's just one.

My little walker doesn't need her crocodiles anymore:

Speaking of comfort, Lemon is still not a fan of stuffed animals.  She has some in her crib but she won't play with them outside of her crib and acts like they don't even exist when I get them out.  She has SO MANY but could care less about them, I even emptied her toy bins the other day to see if she'd pick one but nope.  She'd rather carry around a ball all day, into the bath and even to bed then a stuffed animal or blankie.  I keep telling myself that one day she will like them, here's hoping!

Lemon also talks non stop and I wish I knew what she was saying.  I know that soon enough she will be repeating things over and over but for now I'm just enjoying the babbling.  She does repeat sounds and words and can say all sorts of things - hot, bird, dog, duck, quack, moo, no, Ashley (the nanny), mama, dada and I swear she can even say the dogs' actual names when we say them.  She mimics us all the time and even coughs if we cough of fake laughs when we do.

When you tell Lemon "no" you used to get tears.  Now she just turns her head, looks at you, shakes her head and repeats it and walks away.  She's so nonchalant about everything lately, just walking around not really focusing on anything or caring about anything.  She listens but just walks away and doesn't react.  We took her to Ian's parents to play with her cousins a couple of weeks ago and she acted like they weren't even there, just walking around by herself.  She is so her mother's daughter, very independent.

Cousins!

Lemon is a bit of a drama queen, especially at night, but during the day she is normally in a good mood.  She stops everyone, still, with her smile and is always just walking around yelling and talking.  This month we went back to work and I expected her to take some time to adjust but she really didn't, she still just goes with the flow (something I am still trying to work on myself).  She is really easy going and as long as she naps when she's tired and gets some sleep at night (even just 6-8 hours) she wakes up babbling and walking back and forth in her crib.  She never acts cranky or upset and will normally complain for a minute before just falling asleep in the car if she's tired and we aren't home yet.

Speaking of sleep - this month was absolutely nuts.  It started right before we left for Encinitas and didn't end until a couple of weeks ago, but we still have bad nights every once in awhile.  It's like she gave us a break for about 6 weeks, where she went to bed fine (still on us in the recliner) and slept 10-11 hours straight through the night.  But then after her 1st birthday party we were back to screaming in the middle of the night and multiple wake ups.  It's something about the night time (like I've said before) because for naps she's perfectly fine and will fall right to sleep.  I wish I knew.  She also slept with me for about a week there, something I never thought she'd do, and it was so much fun while it lasted.

We had a rough month there, including the start of school, but now we are semi-back to normal. (I wrote that sentence last week, this week every night is crazy again!)  Lemon is having trouble getting to sleep (last week we had a 12am bed time) and mostly goes to bed some time between 9-10 when a couple of weeks ago it was more like 8:30-9.  The kicker is that she still wakes up at 6:30am so I'm wondering if it's her naps.  I would love to try transitioning her to just one nap a day, around 12, but we tried something like this for a day last week (when she was up all night and woke up way to early so I kept her in bed until she fell back asleep at 7:30 and slept until 9:30) and she was STILL up all night that night.  I am going to try it again but we aren't home during the day so it's tough to make our nanny do a sort of sleep training thing like this.  I also hate it because all of her activities are planned for around 12 right now, swimming and Gymboree, so I would have to switch all of those.  I read an article that gave a checklist on how you know your baby is ready to switch from two naps to one and Lemon didn't hit any of the markers.  She goes right to sleep for her morning nap so I worry that it would be mean keeping her up for hours when she is so tired.  She goes right down, usually, for her afternoon nap too, but each nap lasts from 1-2.5 hours and that could be why she isn't sleeping well at night.  But then we have days were she sleeps only an hour for each nap and she's up all night anyway.  I swear this girl will be the death of me when it comes to sleep.

Her first pedicure and always matching her mama!

Before we took our family trip to Encinitas, we had Lemon's cousins over to play.  My mom had her granddaughters over and loved it.

First time at the Children's Museum in Phoenix.  Loved it but went back recently as a walker and loved it even more.

Still our little fish and making all sorts of friends at swim class.

 

Food has been a hit this month, her 12 month old picky eating habits finally went away!

 

Our last Gymboree day (before going back to school) with a very tired, but very cute, little girl.

 

We found Lemon a nanny instead of sending her to daycare.  Ashley was referred to us by a friend and we absolutely love her.  They seem to be having fun together, Ashley takes her somewhere every day between naps, and I hope she stays forever.  Lemon cries when I leave every morning, heartbreaking, but it is fun to know she's at home and with someone who takes good care of her.

 

My semi-annual haircut before school started.  I needed it!