1. Madison took her first steps on Memorial Day - May 31st - a few weeks before her 1st bday! It took her a week or two to really get the hang of it but now, 1 month later, she definitely prefers to walk over crawling and can easily stand up on her own (without pulling up on something). She's getting close to flat out running but often gets a little too fast for her to maintain her balance. She takes her tumbles like a champ though! She's also come to love her shoes and will hold them out to you and put her foot out so you can put the shoe on her.
2. She just started opening the cabinet doors in the kitchen and entertainment center about 2 weeks ago so I finally had to childproof those. Danny and I are still getting used to that! :) Bookshelves and possibly the oven knobs are probably next on the list.
3. Had a great 1st birthday! I think we basically ended up celebrating for 3-4 days straight in one way or another. We had a great party with a ton of wonderful friends + family and she really racked up in both the clothes and toy departments! I've had to buy several more storage/organizational units to try to get everything under control :)
4. Her 12 month appt stats were 21lb 14oz, 31.5 in long - so still around 98th percentile in length but her weight is below normal for that length (which explains why we are in yet another awkward stage in the clothes department - too big for most 12 mo but too small for 18 mo). This was probably the most she's been affected by the shots - both during and after - out of all the well-baby visits we've had. She was super tired for days (the party probably didn't help though) and I'm pretty sure she has just developed a rash for the MMR vaccine. She's okay otherwise...
5. She moved in to the next class at day care (12-18mo) where they eat table food "family style" and take only one 2-hr nap/day. Her first 3-4 days were a little rough but she seems to be adjusting pretty well. She is definitely having fun with the big kids (and learning a lot - walking well and has been more talkative), but she's still having trouble adjusting to the 1 nap/day. They also sleep in cots, which hasn't been a big deal after all. We also weaned her off the sleep sack which was actually no problem, but we did have to go buy pajamas again! With the new DC sleep situation, a regular blanket would be much easier on the caretakers. They usually get all the other kids to sleep and save her for last since she's the one that's most difficult to get to sleep. There's been a few times where I've watched her online during nap time and she's walking around messing with the other kids as they are trying to get them to sleep. It's awful but I can't help but laugh! And they've told me there's been a few times where she wakes up early and starts talking so much/loud that they have had to take her back to her old class for the rest of the nap period so they other kids can sleep, lol! Fortunately, with my work situation, I've been able to go get her around 4pm so she can still get a decent nap in before bed, although there have been several days this week where she didn't need it!
6. She is finally on whole milk and exclusively table food! The whole milk wasn't as easy a transition as I thought. She was on soy formula so it's a very different taste. We ended up mixing formula/milk and decreasing the amount every few days and she was on 100% whole milk after 5-6 days. She loves it now but her body itself is still adjusting (she's quite gassy, and sometimes it actually hurts her). Hopefully it will adjust soon! She's also had quite the variety of table food at DC and they say she eats well!! We still struggle with veggies (although she will usually eat peas and carrots) but I've found she does like veggie burgers so at least I can get them in her some way! MONDAY UPDATE: we are beginning to think Madison is lactose intolerant. She keeps having this seemingly random outbursts of crying but it's when she's passing gas, so we think her tummy is cramping. We are now trying Lactaid...
7. We are without a doubt in the toddler tantrum stage and it's not fun. Diaper changes are the absolute WORST! She sounds/acts like you are trying to murder her or something! It's ridiculous!!! The only thing I haven't tried is food (because I desperately don't want to be that mom that resorts to food every time I need her to be calm) but I'm about to cave and try some cheerios or something. People keep telling me that she understands more than I give her credit for at this point, but I just don't think she gets it when I say something like, "you can either sit in time out or get a diaper change," or "if you are good, then..." I've tried special toys, giving her my cell phone, singing, funny faces, EVERYTHING (but food)!! It's really ridiculous :( She's thrown tantrums for other things too but the diaper changes are the absolute worst. And I finally got DC to admit that she's the most difficult in the class to change...
8. We decided to wean her off the pacifier! The ped said the sooner, the better (partly because she would get over it faster the younger we did it). However, she already has a tough time sleeping at day care and I've been reluctant to take away ANY tool that might help. We really only use the paci during naps/night - very rarely do we pull it out during awake "tantrums," but it's been nice to have that as a back-up option for those moments when you really need it! She's done really well so far (going on almost 3 days now), but let's just hope she doesn't resort to thumb-sucking now...
It's been an eventful month on a personal note as well. The good news is I've been getting more in to my (portrait) photography and even had a complete stranger ask for me to take her newborn's pics after seeing the ones I took for our mutual friend! I've done 3 newborn portrait sessions in the past few months and then the ones I've taken of Madison recently, so I've been able to get more practice in, which has been a blast :) I've been doing a lot of self-study and learned a lot just from trial/error and feel like I've grown quite a bit in the past 6 months or so. I still have a LONG way to go, but my ultimate dream would be to take my hobby full-time down the road!
The bad news is this past Monday, Lucy (my 19-year old cat) took a turn for the worse. She's been chronically ill for a while but Monday morning she turned in a way that made the decision to put her to sleep a little bit easier. She was okay around 8am and within a few hours she was clearly not doing well. Danny and I think she may have had a stroke or something with how quickly she deteriorated. She has been with me for most of my life and was a very sweet cat, full of personality, so she will be missed. But a part of me feels a lot of relief as well. She was beginning to be more difficult to care for than Madison was at times...
So I started this blog post on Friday and it is now Monday and I'm just now getting around to finishing it :) What started as a long weekend with no plans quickly became busy but we've had a blast! Saturday we took Madison to the neighborhood splash pad. She didn't really want to get down on her own much but she was having a blast with mommy and daddy holding her and running through the water. Yesterday we made another trip to the zoo and I think she (finally) genuinely enjoyed the experience this time. For the first half of the trip I had her in my little pack on my back so she could see better than in the stroller. But once she got tired, she decided she wanted to be held by Mimi (she came to visit us this weekend). In spite of the heat, we all had a good time. We plan on being pretty low-key today though!
I was going to add some photos in this post but I recently posted a lot of new pics on Flickr so feel free to go there if you want to see new stuff. I will never post this blog entry otherwise! We took more pics this weekend and I hope to get around to posting those soon.
Happy 4th of July!!!
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