Harper-13 Months Old

Harper,

Today you are 13 Months old.

Where did this month go? I swear we were just celebrating you turning 1.

Your dad and I say this every month, but it has been so fun to watch you explore, grow, and change.

Here are some picture of what you have been up to lately.

You are starting to take bites from bigger pieces of food. We still cut up 90% of your food, but if we have sandwich, pizza, bananas, or bossy's pear, you have really liked biting it off yourself. You are a really good eater with the foods you love.  For lunch with Katie, you have gerber ravioli (veggies packed in) and fruit or yogurt.  At night, we try to explore different opitons.  You love mac and cheese, fruit, crackers, gold fish, roast, cooked carrots, and anything with sugar!

You have a bit of an issue with food textures. You aren't a fan of bread or most vegetables in whole form...but you will eat a pureed green bean every now and then. These things hit your mouth and you immediately spit them out. 

You have really become a confident walker.  You no longer crawl on the floor and you are constantly exploring the house.  You also do it so quietly...we cannot look away for a second.

You really love finding toilets or the water bowl in mally's cage.  You are also a big fan of shutting doors.

You have always been very independent in your play. You can now reach all your toys in the bin and could play for hours in the playroom.  You like it best when we sit on the floor and keep you company.

 

You are constantly looking into, under, around, and behind things.

You know that if I hide something behind my back that it is still there...and you go looking for it.

Finally into riding your princess car.  You still prefer to push...but every now and then you just sit on it and take off.

You have really enjoyed your new birthday toys...especially building a block castle...oh wait, no, that was your dad.  You were into the TV behind him. He is so proud of himself.

You love to dance when any music is on.
It is so funny to watch you play and then stop dead in your tracks and "bounce up and down" to a commercial or something on the TV.

I will play you music and you just squat and stand back up over and over. It is so cute!

This past month or so, you have really became attached to "Bear" and "Mr. Owl".  Bear seems to be your favorite...but you love to snuggle with both.  It is very rare that Bear and Mr. Owl leave the nursery...but we took them on a walk this morning and you loved it.

Your vocabulary has really started to take off as well.

Some new favorite words: Bapple (apple), Bear, Milkckck (almost like a german accent), Al (owl), pupaw (puppy), paw paw, ba ba ba (bossy), nana, thusie (susie) and anything else we try to get you to say.

You do a good job listening to us and we can see that little mouth trying to form the word.

You have been on a lot of walks in your new wagon. You love to be oustide.

You came to visit Mommy at work and got to see Mr. Kevin and Auntie Melba.

Auntie Melba is being silly in this picture and making all kinds of faces at you.

We have our Halloween decorations up and you don't seem phased by them, except the witch.

You aren't scared of her exactly...you just don't know what she is doing in the corner.

You would cautiously walk by her, stop and stare, and even peer around the corner to see what she is doing.

We finally moved her to fireplace and you like that better.  You will walk by her and wave.  Every now and then, she plays peek-a-boo with you and you laugh.

We got to spend some "after daycare" time with Susie this week.

She is so sweet with you.  She wanted to make sure you were eating your fruit!

You two really love each other and it is so sweet to watch.  Susie takes care of you and you just follow her around trying to do everything she does.

Yall are the best of friends!

Especially now that you face forward in the car.

We turned your carseat around in Daddy's truck first and you LOVED it.  You were so sick of just staring at the back of the seat.  Since you loved it so much, Mrs.Katie and I changed the carseats in our car too!

One of the biggest milestones we hit this month is complete transition from breast milk/formula to whole milk. We switched out your formula feedings immediately and you handled those well.  We took about a week to wean you from breast feeding.  By your 1st birthday, you were only nursing at night and in the morning.  We decided to eliminate one at a time.  Over the course of a week, you were completely on whole milk and haven't looked back.    

I guess you could say the weaning process was a milestone for you and for me.

I can't believe I was able to do it for a year!  I did have help with formula...but I loved being able to spend that time with you and nurse you through your first year.

I did not realize how emotional your last feeding would be for me...very bitter sweet.

Your sweet daddy got me flowers and very appropriate cow card.

We have had a such a fun month and are excited to see what's next!