Dearest Adalynn,
I still can’t believe you are already 1 years old already. I swear the years just keep going by faster and faster. Won’t you just stay a baby a little bit longer? I’m not ready for you to grow up yet.
Right now you are so so much fun! You are cruising all over the furniture trying to walk but still a little apprehensive about letting go. You’ll walk holding onto one of our hands (even your brothers hands) but the second we try to let go – you gently lower yourself back to your knees. We’ve gotten you to take one step by yourself but that is IT! Thats okay. I too was 13 months when I learned to walk and some of your brothers were 14 months. We are okay with you staying a baby as long as we can!
You are a super fast crawler and like to be where the party is. You pretty much follow me all around the house while I clean up and get ready for the day. The great thing about you though is that you are just content being in the same room with me. You play really well on your own and find your own fun even while I am eating, cooking meals, doing dishes, folding laundry etc. As long as you can see me you are usually a very happy girl. Right now you are also making fun sounds. Our favorite is when you go around the house making the z sound over and over again. You also say something that sounds an awful lot like tickle tickle. We love it!
Sometimes you are a little defiant and whiney too. Mostly you whine and grunt when we’ve been traveling and you haven’t had good naps but sometimes you crawl down by our feet and just whine or grunt until we pick you up. You also do this when you aren’t getting what you want or your brothers are bugging you. But we are working with you on this and trying to teach you to sign what you want so that you aren’t so frustrated.
One of the biggest problems we have with you right now is that you will NOT stay seated in your high chair. We aren’t sure what it is – but you LOVE standing up in it – which makes us nervous! You are also into EVERYTHIN and exploring your boundaries pretty hard. Somedays I think you skipped right to being in the terrible two’s! You can open up drawers and cupboards, boxes of cereal, and even pry open peanut butter jars and already you have made some pretty good messes. So far you have emptied out my shirt drawer several times, your brothers socks and underwear drawer, taken lots of dirt out of my indoor plants, taken all our Christmas cards from friends and family out of our box in the living room, emptied out an entire box of Kix cereal, taken all my pots and pans out, taken out all the shoes in my closet, emptied out my box of gift bags and paper, taken all the diapers out of a bag, and everyday you seem to LOVE taking every book I have in my room off of my shelves. You certainly are a curious one and like to take things out of bins/drawers/cupboards one by one throwing them all over the room.
Speaking of throwing – you are REALLY good at it. And Dad and I love the way you throw. Its so super cute. You love throwing balls back and forth with us and then going and fetching them if we throw them far from you. You also love walking with your walker all over the house and will giggle if we come up behind you and roar. You are really started to giggle a lot now and all of us love how cute your laugh is.
You are started to get ticklish and often will giggle when we tickle under your arms or down your sides. You don’t seem ticklish under your chin like your brothers or behind you neck. But you do love it when mommy tickles the back of your neck and you often act like its putting you right to sleep.
You are still taking naps during the day pretty good and usually go down from about 9:30 to 11:00 and then 1:30 to about 3:30 in the afternoon. Then you usually sleep from 7:30 or 8:00 until 7:30 or 8:00 the next morning. You are usually AWESOME about going down for your naps unless we are on vacation or camping and then its hit or miss. Sometimes you do great and other times not so much. This last weekend when we went down to Zions with the Pattersons you were a nightmare to get to sleep and cried and cried and cried no matter if we were holding you or not.
You are especially hard to get down for naps at Grandma and Grandpa Egberts house. We don’t know why – but you just HAVE to be awake the entire time we are there. You just can’t seem to miss out on even a single minute of the party no matter how tired you are. This makes for a difficult day for Mommy though as it makes you overtired and cranky.
To sleep you still like to be held for just a minute and snuggled. I usually put your purple blanket on my shoulder and you will bury your head into it and cuddle with me while I sing you a song. Then I pop a binky in your mouth, give you your little bear Dad and I got you from Alaska and you go to sleep petting and stroking the bear in your hands or rubbing his soft fur over your face. Its adorable.
One of my favorite things that you are doing right now is giving kisses. I just have to ask, “can Mommy have a kiss?” and you lean forward make an “mmmm” sound and then put your lips to mine. It is ADORABLE. You also are doing this thing that when you are around something soft you bury your head into it and go “ohhhhhh” into the soft thing. Now you’ve got the whole family doing it and we all end up giggling as a family watching you do it.
Your relationship with your brothers right now is pretty good too. You absolutely adore Branson and get a big smile on your face when he comes into see you in the morning or when he gets home from school. You let him pick you up (without complaining) and carry you all over the house. Harry on the other hand you grunt and whine at when he tried to hold you. But you love the attention he gives you and he can often get you to giggle by playing games with you or jumping over you while you are eating a bottle. Dawson you are getting close to now as well and surprisingly get along well with for the most part. When your older brothers go to school you love to follow Dawson upstairs and the two of you will play nicely in the play room together for quite sometime. Its really cute.
Speaking of stairs you are AMAZING at them and can go both up and down like a champ. You love it when I follow you up though and roar at you and you giggle like crazy! I love it.
In short baby girl, you are a JOY to have in our family and we love all these cute milestones that you have. You still have 6 teeth (4 on top and 2 on the bottom) with no sign of new ones coming in anytime soon. You eat well and mostly prefer solids that you can put in your mouth to being spoon fed although recently you’ve liked me to feed you yogurt and soups I make. You still take 4 bottles a day (at 8, 12, 4, and 7:30), and I’m still pumping about 2 of your 4 bottles for you. This is the longest I’ve ever had milk and so I’m trying to go as long as I can for your sake and take advantage of that fact. The hope is for me to pump until you are 18 months old. We will see though. I’m already seeing quite a drop in my milk supply since you turned one. Not sure why.
We sure do love you baby girl. Thanks so much for being in our family and bringing a little more pink and color into our lives. You sure are a treasure and loved and adored by each of us in your family!
Your’s forever,
Mommy Pants