Hooray! We survived the first year and kept our little babe happy and healthy! To be honest though, first year literally flew by. I feel like it wasn’t too long ago when I could feel her tiny feet kicking in my belly, now she is taking steps with those tiny feet!
At the end of 9 months she started crawling on her hands and knees then she was off! I think she was waiting for this discovery, because once she found out how to crawl, she moved around the entire house on her hands and knees in warp speed! By 10.5 months old, she was pulling herself up on everything she could get her little hands on – sofa, consoles, stairs, chairs etc. One of her favorite activities is pulling out the drawers and taking everything out. More work for mama to clean after her mess… LOL. The first time she stood for a long time unsupported was around when Emma was 11 months old. She pulled out a drawer from her dresser and pulled herself up. She dug around and found something she liked then magically started standing on her own with the object she pulled out of the drawer in her hands. From then on, she started standing on her own longer and longer, and now she is standing and taking a couple of steps without any support. I think she’s a very cautious baby though. She’s scared to let go of our hands and walk freely. I’m not in a hurry for her to walk anyway because that means we have to chase her 24/7. Haha.
At one year old, she has 6 teeth visible, her 4th tooth at the bottom came out at 10 months and by 10.5 months, she had two top teeth. We now see another set of two coming out from the top, but they have not broken through yet. She is also more verbal now, repeating a lot of things we say and making all sorts of different sounds. She would mimic animal sounds and lets us know when she is fascinated about something by making “OOohhH” sounds. It is the cutest thing! It’s super darling to see her very animated, copying everything we do – she does this one thing where she puts her hands on her head and says “WOW”, and she knows when she is being cute! She would scrunch her nose and put on the biggest grin while tilting her head to one side. I mean, come on! You can get away with ANYTHING with that face! We are so in trouble!!
As for solids, we are now off of formula altogether. She kind of started weaning herself off a week before she turned one. She’d eat more table food and less formula. Once she turned one, I transitioned off of formula to whole milk. We still give her whole milk in a bottle when she wakes up and before she goes to bed – but no more bottle feeding during the day! Man, it feels good not having to do that and lugging around bottles and water! Now we gotta tackle getting rid of bottles. I tried giving her morning milk in a sippy cup, but she didn’t drink any! Babies are strange, she does fine with water in a sippy cup, but not milk. We shall see how this transition goes.. as always, I’m mostly going with the flow.
For me, one year postpartum seems surreal. I just cannot believe my baby is one and it’s been a full year since I gave birth! I definitely feel more like a seasoned mama, haha. I’m not as anxious or paranoid about raising a baby. I definitely feel more comfortable in my parenting style and I no longer freak out if I forget to pack something in her diaper bag. 😉 Now only if I can lose the last stubborn 10 lbs of preggo weight…I’ll be golden! But I really can’t complain since I haven’t done much to help lose the weight. I shall report back once I have done so. 😉 All in all, the past year was an amazing experience for me, I grew as a mother which in turn made me grow as a person. Believe it or not, I learned more about motherhood through Emma than anything I’ve read in books or the internet. She helped me shape into the mother I am today and my only hope is that Emma will always be proud to have me as her mother.
The monthly postpartum update will end here, but stay tuned for periodic toddler updates!
-m
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