One Year Later...

Ellie on her birthday playing with her "big" toy. It makes a good island for getting across the room.

A flirty smile in the car captured by her number one paparazzi, Aunt C.

Another smile coaxed by Aunt C. She only had to take about 200 photos to get these two adorable smiles....

It's official. We have a one year old. We have been parents for a year. It was the fastest year EVER! Ellie had two little birthday celebrations. She had chocolate cake and presents after Thanksgiving dinner and nap. Grandma N was disappointed that she didn't get more cake in more orifices. She actually got messier the next day when we went out for lunch and we gave her black bean hummus. However, she did seem to enjoy unwrapping presents and she ate almost her entire slice of cake and her little birthday pumpkin pie on her actual birthday.

Presents ran the gamut from a Star Wars board book, toys that sing, Christmas books, pj's, a fancy Christmas dress, and a precious stuffed pull-lion on wheels. The unofficial theme for the gifts was lions. She got a cute jellycat lion from Aunt C, along with cute lion pj's. Great Aunt J and Uncle M sent a beautiful Caldecott award winning book about the Lion and the Mouse. And, Grandma N and Grandpa B provided the aforementioned pull-lion.

She is now cruising quite adeptly around the living room and once we (P) put together the Fisher Price "house" we've had for a year, she started crawling around. Not sure what the house did exactly, but that's when she started supplementing the cruising with crawling to get where there were no assists.

She had her 1 year check up on Tuesday. She is 18 pounds (7th percentile), 29.75" (71st percentile), and her head is tiny. Her hair is growing though. It's starting to look messy, but it's still straight, fine, and very blonde. Baby girl is a huge fan of peas. She will eat them any way they come. Her latest fave is freeze-dried. Dr. L recommended starting her on whole milk. I made it to my one year goal of nursing, but rather than cutting back, she seems to be "snacking" more. Throughout the day she points to, starts pulling at my shirt or pounds on my chest to make it clear that she wants what I've got. Then, she nurses for a minute, bites me, and pops off. The biting is getting really old. That, and the fact that all my nursing tanks are getting pretty ratty are my only real reasons for wanting to wean her. However, I still plan on letting her lead the way.

Potty-training is kind of stuck in semi-pro mode. She makes most bowel movements in the potty. But, every now and then, we just have an off day (like today) and she gets a few dirty diapers. Our best days are days we stay at home. I've decided to hold off on training pants until she is mobile enough to get to the potty. She's almost there.

Between the rash of vaccinations yesterday and the doctor ordered anemia test this morning, I've decided that the worst part of parenting (so far) is watching your child suffer. She's gotten to the point where she knows the shot routine and starts wailing before the needles go in. She is very aware of what being restrained by 3 people means. Today, they took a few ml of blood from her finger and that was utterly wretched for everyone involved. Including the kind older man in the waiting room.

In this video, I told Ellie, she had a minute to make it across the room to me. She did it in 40 seconds.

Ellie shows off some random crawling. No, we are not training her with a bell. The dog decided that was a good time to try to entice me to throw her ball (that has a bell in it). Maybe Isis is training her with a bell....