One Year Old

 Wow, that year went by quickly.  And yet it feels like Kayden has been here for a long time already.  I keep feeling like she's still my little baby because she has no teeth, she doesn't crawl/move yet, she still has her crib mattress at the highest setting because she hasn't pulled herself up yet, she's still nursing...but in other ways it just makes so much sense that she's one already!

 Kayden is still small for her age.  She had her 12 month immunizations this morning and she was 16lbs 13.5oz and 27.5" tall.  She is wearing 12 month clothes.  I've noticed this month that her legs have really been stretching out and looking more like toddler legs than baby legs.  She's really thinning out a lot in general. 

 Kayden doesn't have much hair but she had her first haircut this month.  Some hairs were scraggly-looking so I trimmed them all to roughly the same length.  Much better! 

Kayden doesn't have any teeth yet but she's definitely teething now.  Her sleep has been disrupted for the past week or so and we can see that her gums are swollen and the teeth are right there, though there's not even any white peeking through yet.  But they're coming!  Personally, I think her gummy grin is pretty cute.  And she can handle every type of finger food like a pro, despite having no teeth!

Speaking of food, Kayden has left pureed food in the dust and will only eat what we're eating.  Sometimes, if she hasn't eaten much during the day, I'll pull out some puree or baby cereal right before bed and she'll eat a few bites but mostly she just flat out refuses.  But it seems to be working!  She seems to be getting enough nutrition from what she feeds herself so I can't complain.  She is still nursing 3 times a day but we've also managed to get her to drink whole milk out of a sippy cup this month so I think weaning might be in our near future.  Her favourite foods seem to be noodles, frozen peas/corn, popcorn twists (what kid doesn't love those?!), raisins, and peanut butter sandwiches (cut into cubes). She doesn't like...I don't know!  I don't recall anything she flat-out refuses.

 Kayden's play has changed a bit this month.  The other day we were playing a  game where she would shake  her head "no" and then I would "gobble" her neck saying "yes! yes! yes!" and she would laugh and shake her head "no" again and we would do it over and over again.  That kind of play shows me that she's growing up :)  She has also discovered the fun of buttons this month.  If she sees a button, she has to find out what it does!  This newfound game has been a lot of fun for her just now as she's sitting next to me on the couch while I type this, pressing all the buttons on the left hand side of the keyboard.  Makes for tricky typing!  Her favourite "toys" are the pets (cats and dog), her brother, and anything that plays music or makes noise.

Kayden has been sleeping through the night for most of this month.  Just in the last week or so has she been waking up in the night again.  It started out with sickness (fevers, coughing, etc) so I couldn't NOT go in but I think she has gotten used to the midnight snuggles and is now waking in the night expecting them again.  Last night was the first night of being firm with her that night is for sleeping and, once 10:30pm came and went, she was good for the rest of the night.  She has started crying whenever I put her down for her naps which I hate.  It makes me so tense when babies cry themselves to sleep a couple times a day!  But she always falls asleep and never cries for long so I guess she is just old enough now that she wants to be in on the action instead of napping.  But she still needs the naps so I guess she'll have to live with it.  She naps twice a day, at 10am and 1:30pm, each 60-90 minutes.  She goes to bed around 8pm and wakes at about 7:30am.

 Right from the beginning of her life, I've joked that Kayden is such a girl in that she knows how to communicate.  Maybe that's why she's so content?  She doesn't feel unheard/misunderstood all the time?  This month, Kayden has mastered "yes" and "no" in the form of head shakes.  Well, she's mastered "no" for sure.  She will tell us when she doesn't want any more (shakes head) or if she does want more (reaches, opens mouth, etc).  It makes for MUCH easier parenting when our kids get to that stage of understanding that they can tell us what they want or don't want and don't have to cry about everything.  I'm so glad this girl has discovered it young! 

Kayden's greatest joy this month has been dancing and music.  When she sees me reaching for the little tape player that we have in the kitchen, her face lights up and she starts bouncing.  She hears music and her little body just bounces and dances!  It's so fun to watch her take such joy in music!  Yesterday, on her birthday, I would hold her and sing happy birthday to her while dancing with her in my arms.  I did this multiple times through the day.  At the beginning, she would just raise her arms so she wasn't holding on and "dance" with me by kicking her legs and doing little ab crunches/bouncing in my arms.  By the end of the day, it was a full out grin as we danced around the kitchen.  What a joyful one she is!

Kayden isn't moving yet.  She only mastered rolling at 11 month and only realized it could get her places in the last day or two.  Even so, she doesn't always remember that she can use rolling to go places so most often she just lays there.  She doesn't crawl/scoot at all either.  I always joke that it's nice to know where at least one of my kids is at all times...she's always exactly where I leave her!  And I can even leave her on a table/chair and she won't move.  Now, of course I don't leave her unattended in unsafe places, but I'm just saying...if I needed to run to grab something while I'm changing her diaper, chances are pretty good that she'll still be on the change table when I get back 10 seconds later.  :)

And that's our girl at a year!  What a beautiful, wonderful girl she is, inside and out!  It has been a joy to watch her grow this past year, from a tiny, sleeping-all-the-time newborn to a joyful, inquisitive, smiling one year old.