One Year Update!

Seeing as how Tula is now a full 2 weeks past her first birthday I figure I really need to get on her 12 month update. It has been such a crazy busy last couple of weeks, the time has really flown since her birthday and this blogging thing can be tough to keep up with in times like this. Plus, I am getting ginormous and to sit at the computer for an extended period of time is getting more and more difficult for me to do. In fact, at this stage of the game, everything is getting more and more difficult. I am starting to feel very hot, very tired, and very ready to meet my son! I am so excited to be "un-pregnant" again and actually be able to get on the floor and play with Tula or run around and chase her. The poor girl has a fairly inactive Mama right now and that makes for some long days when Daddy is at work. I spend lots of time sitting on the sofa or chairs beside her while she plays at my feet, or somewhere in the vicinity. There have even been a few times that I have had to bring her into my bedroom with me and shut the door and take a nap while she just plays. I usually wake up to find everything removed from the cabinets or my closet ripped apart, but it is all babyproofed and the little bit of cleanup that I have to do is well worth the nap that I get out of the deal. I have never been a big napper but the combination of the heat, the pregnancy, and being Mommy to a now mobile one year old has given me a change of heart. I squeeze them in when I can.

Well is true what they say, it's fun to be one! Tula is doing so many fun things right now and we could not be enjoying her more. The first big thing, she is a walking little girl! She started taking steps by herself a little with some coaching from Grandma while she was here visiting the two weeks before her birthday. She loved holding Grandma's hand and doing loops around the kitchen and first floor. Then we went to CT, and although she would show off from time to time that she was capable of walking on her own, she still loved to hold anyone's hand that would take it and wander around the property, inside and out. She spent all day, every day, walking around, mostly assisted. I knew that as soon as we got home she would figure it out quick because I am incapable of holding her had like that right now, but I had no idea that we were bringing home a completely walking girl. Literally, we walked in the door from the airport and put her down to start unpacking and getting settled, and she just popped herself up and started walking around the living room. As though she had been doing it all along. Of course she was weeble wobbling a little, but it was a complete shock to John and I that she had it figured out so quick. As the week went on, she just got better, stronger, and more confident. Now that we have been home a week, she is no longer the helpless, crawling baby I had last month. She is a little toddler who pitter patters around the house. She loves to come and "find" me in whatever room I may be busy in, she loves to be chased around now that she can run away, and she loves that she can hide things now that she is mobile enough to bring things from one place to another. So far, I have found my flip flip in the tub, mail keys in the box under the kitchen cabinet, and cookies in the toilet. I finally had to put a cabinet lock on the one under the sink because that's where our garbage can is and she was constantly into it. Otherwise, the rest of them are all safe and babyproofed for her to be in. I got sick of finding her getting into the garbage though so that one under the sink had to get done. She was not impressed when she realized it.

Having a walking girl has been so fun for John and I. As sad as I was for it to start, I am enjoying it now that it has happened and Tula is so much easier to play with and bring around. Not only is she mobile, but is starting to seem to really understand what we say to her. If I am in the kitchen and she is in the living room and I call her or ask her to come, if she is interested, she will. When I ask her if she wants to go for a walk in her red car, she will walk over to it and sit down and wait for me to do up the seatbelt. She walked over to the fridge today and banged on it to tell me she was thirsty. All that stuff that just makes her seem so much older. It's fun for John too, they can wrestle on the floor and he can really play with her. This weekend when he was out doing the yard, Tula and I joined him and he loved having her out there waddling around and playing in the rocks while he worked. They even went for a little Daddy/Daughter drive to get the car washed and pick some things up at Costco.

She loves having him home so much and we miss him like crazy when he is gone. But she is learning that when Daddy is home, she has him wrapped around her finger. She wants him for all naps and bedtime when he is around. See, Mommy nurses her and then puts her down, and although she doesn't normally cry at all, she puts herself to sleep. Daddy rocks her and snuggles her and shushes her and makes sure she is sound asleep before he leaves the room. He has to, she makes sure of it. If she it the slightest bit awake when he puts her down, she lets him know, and he continues to rub her back until she is dreaming away. It's sweet, really. Because she was always breastfed and never took a bottle, John never had a lot of opportunity to do some of the soothing stuff, so he loves finally having the chance to do it. Watching the two of them together right now, more than ever, just melts my heart. They absolutely adore one another and it is pure joy for me to watch.

We finally took Tula's bumper pads off her crib this month when she started trying to use them to step on (I guess in hopes of getting closer to escaping the crib?) I just took them off one night and it didn't even phase her, I thought she would notice or have a couple nights of not sleeping well when she woke up and realized they were gone but that wasn't the case. We also had to put a GummiRail around the top of her crib to prevent her from chewing ALL of the paint off. At first I didn't realize what all the white speckles around her mouth after naptimes were and by the time I figured it out it had become a habit and the damage to the crib was done. We covered it with this railing and that seems to be working though, hopefully that will solve that problem.

Tula still loves and is eating mostly pureed food. She still has Cheerios for breakfast with some milk in a sippy and sometimes still a bowl of cereal with fruit and milk too. Lunch is almost always two YoBaby yogurts, and dinner is usually pureed sweet potatoes. This week I tried cutting the sweet potatoes into little cubes and steaming them and letting her feed herself and she seemed to like it a lot, and ate enough that I felt like I didn't have to "re-feed" her pureed stuff afterwards. Didn't try a lot of new foods this month except nectarines, and they were a smash hit and a new favorite! Not pureed, either. She like to eat little pieces of them and they are soft enough for her to chew. I did try giving her little bits of apple cut up and although she liked them, she wouldn't stop choking on them so I think I will try that steamed again. Oh yeah, and bananas are "out" again. I can't remember what the status was on them last monthly update. But lately, Tula and bananas are on the outs.

Tula really starting drinking milk well from a sippy cup this month. She seems to like it and will drink it with almost any meal and snack. She is still nursing when she wakes up and most nights before bed, and if she asks throughout the day. By asking, I mean pulling as my shirt, and we are working on proper nursing etiquette. She seems to know the sign for milk but uses it more for the sippy cup so I am unsure how we will curb the pulling at the shirt situation. Most of the time, offering her her sippy cup helps. With all the added milk intake, her 12 month weigh in was great. She weighed 16 lbs 15 oz, up 12 oz from last month, which is the biggest monthly gain she has had since December so I was pretty excited. The Doctor seemed happy to and I think everyone can breathe a sigh of relief know that Tula will soon and finally be in the 17 pound range. We only waited 6 months for that to happen, she has been 15 or 16 something since December so I am glad to see her finally growing. She is still small for a one year old, but growing by the month and that's the most important part! Thank Goodness!

Tula now has four teeth up top and the two on the bottom. When she laughs and I see her top ones all lined up it makes her look so old to me. No new ones seem to be on the horizon and I don't know if it's because of lack of teething or sheer luck but sleep is still going great. Tula has been sleeping through the night consistently for well over a month now, even while we were in CT she wasn't waking. This is such exciting news for me. With another baby on the way so soon, I didn't want to be waking up with two throughout the night. That would have been exhausting. So I am delighted that she has started this new thing without too much pressure from us. I wanted it to come naturally and it did, It took 11 months, but it was worth the wait. These nights of uninterrupted sleep are a dream come true! I forgot how good that feels!

Speaking of sleep and bedtime.....it's 12:30 am and I need to get there. That's all I can think of for now, I have two weeks till a 13 month update and at the rate she is changing that will be another long one too. It's like every day she goes to bed a bigger girl than when she woke up. And it's like I can just watch her figure out her world and surroundings more and more every day. This truly is such a fun age!

There's some new July pics in the gallery of Tula at a Reading time we went to put on by a local library. She loved walking around amongst the kids and although she wasn't that into the story she loved the crowd. I sat in the back in the chairs and couldn't believe I was watching MY toddler wander around and sit next to random kids, look at them for a minute, and get up and walk some more. The girl is not shy at all sometimes. Check out the pictures and see if you can spot her in the crowd......