Maya: 12 months!
Happy, happy first birthday, Maya! Although we've been celebrating for like a week, you are now *officially* one! Mama couldn't be more proud of you!
(I will try to come back and edit this post with some photos of her bonus birthday "parties" - one at daycare, involving only punch balloons and dress-up clothes, and one here at Grandma and Grandpa's house involving cake and presents! We are still at the in-laws now though, and I am sneaking time just to get this written, so hopefully I can add photos when we get back home?)
One-year-old Maya continues to surprise us with her new skills. She's been "able" to walk unassisted since Thanksgiving, but she is still very unsteady on her feet and continues to rely on crawling for her main mode of transportation. Numerous times, we've seen her stand up in the middle of a room and walk more than 10 steps unassisted, but it never sticks - she just seems to prefer crawling. So crawling it is! :)
Although she may be running a bit behind on the walking, her speech is amazing. She adds at least one new word per week, which is starting to actually scare me a bit! She recites books with us - no joke! - providing key words in their proper place. She can indeed go select a specific book from a pile across the room, sometimes recognizing it only by the spine, when prompted to go retrieve it by telling her only the title (ex: "Maya, go get "Very Busy Spider!"). It's pretty spooky how quickly she picks up on things and how truly smart she is - we really, really need to stop dropping the f-bomb.
I'm pretty sure that I'm not going to be able to list new words any longer because everything is going too fast, but a few new gems in addition to the words listed last month are: up, help, bow wow wow, Trish, Mel (her daycare providers), off, bye-bye, and "this" (catch all for whatever she has in her hands/is pointing at). She also signs help, please, and thank you (in an attempt to stem the screams when she wants something - and it's working!) and a bunch of other things, including a few signs that we can't recognize because they're not clear enough. It kind of feels like we climbed to the top of the hill on the roller coaster and then the operator released the clamp - and down we go, at breakneck speed!
We've struck a pretty good life balance between daycare, work, and family stuff. It took a lot of practice to make sure everything gets to where it needs to be when it needs to get there, but we've finally gotten to a place where it mostly works. Maya is happy at school, and happy to see us when it's over (and vice versa :)). Both husband and I want to work out more, and I could still use more actual working hours in my day (which should come as she continues to sleep better at night), but we have few complaints otherwise.
One other great new development is Maya initiating new, original games with me. The best one this month was a tickle game, in which she pulls up my shirt and gently bites my stomach to get me to laugh (and it really does tickle tremendously!). Torrents of giggles ensue, from both parties. I'm pretty sure that any biting game is 100% banned at daycare - for good reason - so I try to tell her that this is a game that we can only play with Mama. But in any case, I didn't teach her this game, it's something she came up with on her own, and that struck me as being a very significant step!
That's all that I can think of for the moment - here's a teaser pic: Cake, round #2! Happy, happy birthday!
(I will try to come back and edit this post with some photos of her bonus birthday "parties" - one at daycare, involving only punch balloons and dress-up clothes, and one here at Grandma and Grandpa's house involving cake and presents! We are still at the in-laws now though, and I am sneaking time just to get this written, so hopefully I can add photos when we get back home?)
One-year-old Maya continues to surprise us with her new skills. She's been "able" to walk unassisted since Thanksgiving, but she is still very unsteady on her feet and continues to rely on crawling for her main mode of transportation. Numerous times, we've seen her stand up in the middle of a room and walk more than 10 steps unassisted, but it never sticks - she just seems to prefer crawling. So crawling it is! :)
Although she may be running a bit behind on the walking, her speech is amazing. She adds at least one new word per week, which is starting to actually scare me a bit! She recites books with us - no joke! - providing key words in their proper place. She can indeed go select a specific book from a pile across the room, sometimes recognizing it only by the spine, when prompted to go retrieve it by telling her only the title (ex: "Maya, go get "Very Busy Spider!"). It's pretty spooky how quickly she picks up on things and how truly smart she is - we really, really need to stop dropping the f-bomb.
I'm pretty sure that I'm not going to be able to list new words any longer because everything is going too fast, but a few new gems in addition to the words listed last month are: up, help, bow wow wow, Trish, Mel (her daycare providers), off, bye-bye, and "this" (catch all for whatever she has in her hands/is pointing at). She also signs help, please, and thank you (in an attempt to stem the screams when she wants something - and it's working!) and a bunch of other things, including a few signs that we can't recognize because they're not clear enough. It kind of feels like we climbed to the top of the hill on the roller coaster and then the operator released the clamp - and down we go, at breakneck speed!
We've struck a pretty good life balance between daycare, work, and family stuff. It took a lot of practice to make sure everything gets to where it needs to be when it needs to get there, but we've finally gotten to a place where it mostly works. Maya is happy at school, and happy to see us when it's over (and vice versa :)). Both husband and I want to work out more, and I could still use more actual working hours in my day (which should come as she continues to sleep better at night), but we have few complaints otherwise.
One other great new development is Maya initiating new, original games with me. The best one this month was a tickle game, in which she pulls up my shirt and gently bites my stomach to get me to laugh (and it really does tickle tremendously!). Torrents of giggles ensue, from both parties. I'm pretty sure that any biting game is 100% banned at daycare - for good reason - so I try to tell her that this is a game that we can only play with Mama. But in any case, I didn't teach her this game, it's something she came up with on her own, and that struck me as being a very significant step!
That's all that I can think of for the moment - here's a teaser pic: Cake, round #2! Happy, happy birthday!
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| Spoiled baby, through and through!! |
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