12 months

Wow! I cannot believe a year has already passed and you are 1! Time has really flown. We cannot imagine life without you. You are such a happy, content toddler (most of the time).

You are really started to do a lot more. You love to imitate us. If you see a brush or comb or hair bow you raise it to your head. You will grab a pen or pencil and pretend to scribble. You like to feed mommy by offering me cheerios, peas or strawberries. You also try to put your paci in my mouth. You think it is so funny. You love to play with all of the many baby dolls around the house. Your fine motor skills are really developing. You enjoy stacking things, turning pages, and putting things in bowls.

You love to give hugs and kisses. You love to kiss your puppy and your baby dolls. You are such a snuggle bug.

You are still a good eater and rarely eat pureed food anymore. You think it is hilarious to spit out any baby food and let it dribble down your face. I do not think it is funny at all.

Some of your favorite foods are cheese, peas, green beans, strawberries, sandwich meat and bread. You very favorite thing is Baby Mum Mums, a healthy snack that can be found easily at Walmart of all places. You will crawl to the pantry and if the door is open you will try to find them. If you see them you say "ummmm".

You still nurse about 5-6 times a day though you can go a long time without it if we are busy. You do take milk from a sippy cup as well and that is good. We started feeding you milk in a bottle but then realized we should skip that and go straight to your cup. It is so great that you will take milk from a cup because it makes it much easier for mom to leave you at church, Mother's Day Out or with daddy at night.

You do still use a pacifier. Our plan is to start limiting your use to the crib and maybe the car. I will probably keep it with me for major melt downs in public but I would rather get rid of it sooner than later.

You have a great sense of humor and love to see us laugh at you. I love that in this month's chair photo session your main goal was to thrown your dog over the side.

You are a pretty good sleeper. You go to bed between 7:30-8 and sleep until about 7 or 7:30 in the morning, waking up once most nights. You usually wake up in the very early morning about 5:30 or 6. You often will join us in our room and continue to sleep. Many parents would get you up to start your day and then put you down for a morning nap but I value my sleep from 6:30-7:30 so I would rather you sleep longer and have a later nap. The problem is that you often skip that morning nap if we are out and running around. You do typically take a good afternoon nap though.

We went in for a combined sick/well visit for your one year check up. Poor thing, you were sick for your birthday for almost a week. The verdict was a really bad cold. At one year you weighed 17lb. 5.5 oz (3%), measured 30 inches in height (75%) and had a head circumference of 44.5 cm (40%). For some reason we all think you are a lot bigger than Katherine was but at one year she was 50% height and <3%>

Your biggest development this month was in your mobility. You took a few steps about a week before your birthday and really started to walk on your birthday. Before that you were pulling up and cruising all over the place. You are also really a climber. a week or 2 before your birthday you climbed all the way to the top of the Chick-Fil-A playground by yourself and then went down the slide with your cousin Emily.

With the increased mobility has come an increased curiosity. You are getting into everything and getting into trouble! Luckily most of the house was already baby proofed. As you can see, this week you climbed onto the dishwasher, got into Hooligan's food and water, did acrobatic stunts while reaching for the crayons, climbed into the play kitchen and discovered the toilet paper roll. Another favorite is climbing on the stool Katherine uses to wash her hands. Amazingly, you have not been injured yet.

This new found mobility and curiosity is about to warrant discipline. For the most part you have just been curious and I redirect you but I am starting to see some willful disobedience that needs to be dealt with. Not the most fun part of parenting but necessary.

You love, love, love your big sister and want to imitate whatever she does and be wherever she is. This means that if she is sitting in her brown chair, you do not sit in yours, you join her in hers. And if she is sitting at her table, you don't pull up a chair, you join her in hers.

Sometimes though, when she is busy or at school, you sit at her table and play with your toys. You seem so proud when you climb in the chairs and you look so grown up.

You are communicating more. You have a handful of words and you are starting to do signs, not just imitating me but on your own. I really need to be better about teaching you sign language because it was so helpful with your sister.

You are starting to enjoy books more. Your lack of interest has been my fault as you just don't get read to. You sit on the bed when I read Katherine her books but rarely do we sit and read with you. We are trying to get better and now you will pick up books on your own to flip through.

You love the water. We took swim lessons this summer. The first 2 lessons you were not excited about going under. By the end, you never cried and now you dip your face in any pool or bathtub and think it is hilarious.

We had some pictures done for your birthday. I especially love the pictures of the "smash cake".

Caroline, we love you so much!

Technology

This post was originally written 1/29/09 but for some reason never posted.

Our Caroline is becoming a technological genius. Today at just 6.5 months old she has managed to turn on the TV with the remote control and start playing a song on my itunes on my computer(an a kids song no less).

Katherine has all of the tech lingo down. She talks about needing to send an email from her computer or leave a voice mail for pops after the beep on his office phone. We finally found my missing cell phone. It went missing in September. I did not realize that the borrowed baby swing had a pocket on the back - the side that was up against the wall. Well, someone put the phone there and did not remember until I found it. Now that someone has a nonworking Razr phone to play with since it has already been replaced.

Isn't it amazing what a different world our kids are growing up in. It really scares me actually. There are so many things that my kids will deal with that I have no clue how to deal with. When I was on the phone with AT&T yesterday they were trying to sell me more after I was done with what I needed. They asked if there were any other people in our household who needed cell phones. I said, "considering they are 6 months and almost 3 years I don't think so". Her reply was, "well it won't be too long". I sure hope so. I am amazed at how early kids are getting cell phones, especially considering how expensive they can be with all of the texting and photo sending. And isn't that scary that kids can take photos and videos with their phone and send them to friends so easily? I have been following the blog of Vicky Courtney for some time. Her passion is parents and technology and keeping young girls pure. She gives me a lot to think about years (hopefully) before I will need it.

Until then, I can laugh and think it is cute that Katherine wants to send an email and Caroline can turn on the TV.

Zoo

One of my best friends from college and my roommate lives out of state. Her parents live on about 100 miles away though so when she was in town last week we made a day trip to visit. Since we had kids age 1, 3, 6 and 8 we had to find a kid friendly activity for a range of ages. We went to the zoo. It is a smaller zoo as it is a smaller city but it is a really nice zoo. We were also lucky because it was not very crowded at all.

Me and Ashley (with Caroline asleep)

Christy the pack mule with both kids.

Sweet Caroline riding on my back. I love my patapum carrier.

Looking at the fish and the monkeys

Goofing off with the butterfly and ladybug photos. Katherine wanted her picture in each one.

There was a cool clear slide that went through the water. When inside you could see the otters swimming.

It was raining on and off the entire time we were there. I don't know that I heard a single complaint about getting wet though. I love how close we were to the animals in a natural habitat. No sad cement cages here.
Here I am as a pack mule again.

This poor buffalo was in labor. We stood there for a long time waiting to see the baby buffalo's birth. We finally gave up.

Our Little Lady Bug

We had Caroline's Family birthday party on Saturday. Both sets of grandparents were there along with one set of cousins, aunt and uncle. Sadly, Caroline was actually sick with a fever and cough so she was not her usual self. Amazingly though she did very well and still had fun.

She had a stack of presents that was much bigger than she is. We gave her a wagon and the rest of the presents were from the rest of the family.

She got her own baby doll, a personalized book, sand toys for her new sand and water table, a stacking toy, a tea set, 2 balls, farm fridge magnets, a set of musical instruments, a chair and some clothes. I am sure I am leaving some things out as well.

She loved her chair that matches Katherine's chair. She has been trying to sit with Katherine and sometimes that works but sometimes it is too crowded.

I always have fun making my kids birthday cakes. This year I made a lady bug cake. It was actually the easiest cake I have made. I baked a box of mix in a Pampered Chef batter bowl and added a cupcake to the front for the head. Then I just iced it. I thought it really turned out cute.

Caroline was not excited to put on her party hat or be strapped into her high chair. But, when she realized she would get another cupcake she perked up a bit and really got into it.

I sure can't believe my baby girl is already ONE!!!