An adventure at the doctor and a conversation with Addelyn

Addelyn had her 12-month checkup (yay!  my big 1-year old! A blog on the birthday will come soon).  Everything went excellently until it came time for Addelyn to get her shots.  She got three this time and, as always, she was NOT happy with them!  As Addelyn always does when she's very upset (like many babies) the initial cry was all in one big exhale.  Usually that exhale would be followed by a big breath and then some very loud screaming.  This time the breath in didn't happen...and didn't happen...and didn't happen.  The nurse and I kind-of laughed it off for the first 5-10 seconds, but then she kept NOT breathing.  I started to get really scared, and then her eyes rolled back into her head and she started to fall over in my arms and then I really started to panic.  My mommy instincts kicked in and I was rubbing her hard on the back and yelling her name and jostling her around a bit to get her to breathe.  Thankfully, the nurse remembered her training and after I sat a partially-limp Addelyn down on the table to get in front of her, the nurse blew in her face.  Looking back, I knew that blowing in a child's face will cause them to take an instinctual breath in, but I didn't think to apply that knowledge to that situation.  As soon as the nurse blew in Addelyn's face she took a deep breath in, came-to, and started crying normally.  This all took place in the span of about 15 seconds, but it felt like forever!  Addelyn did just fine after that and is no worse for wear, and now I know what to do should that ever happen again!

On a lighter note, here's a fun conversation I just had with Addelyn over dinner:
Me:  "Yay!  look, you just ate your vegetables all gone!  What a good girl!"
Addelyn:  smiles and signs all gone
Me:  "Do you want some more?"
Addelyn:  shakes her head no
Me:  "Do you want some more squash?"
Addelyn:  shakes her head no
Me:  "Do you want some water?"
Addelyn:  shakes her head no
Me:  "Do you want some puffs?"
Addelyn:  shakes her head no  (now I'm starting to think she's just saying no because she likes to tell me no...)
Me:  "Do you want some peaches?"
Addelyn:  shakes her head no
Me:  "Do you want up?"
Addelyn:  shakes her head no
Me:  "Are you all done?"
Addelyn:  shakes her head no
Me:  "Do you want a cookie"
Addelyn:  smiles, nods her head yes and signs cookie.

Oh my...such a sweet tooth already.  (Though...they are cookies specially for babies, sweetened by fruit, so I don't feel too bad giving her one per day)

Stats - I'll do stats for the first birthday post :-)

Addelyn did a couple of new things today that I thought were pretty AMAZING considering her age:

1.  It seems that Addelyn has learned a little bit of self-control.  We were playing with bubbles and she took the wand from me.  After playing with it a while (blowing in it, waving it around, looking at herself holding it in the mirror) she started to put it in her mouth.  After telling her to get it out of her mouth several times I took it away, at which point she of course began to cry.  After giving her cuddles and letting her know that I still loved her even though I had to take away her toy, I told her I'd give it back to her but she couldn't put it in her mouth, otherwise I'd take it away for good.  Once she got it back she played with it some more (though still in a bad mood from when I took it away) - and here's the surprising part:  at least a dozen times she went to put the wand in her mouth but caught herself before she did it and stopped and shook her head no-no (and yelled at me because she wanted to put it in her mouth) but she DIDN'T put it back in her mouth again and I didn't even need to remind her.

2.  Addelyn has made up a sign for "pretty" and "hairbrush"  It came about because I always tell her how pretty she is when I'm brushing her hair, so to say either word she just "brushes" her hair with her hand.  When I realized what she had done I was quite impressed to say the least!

3.  Addelyn has started shaking or nodding her head to say "no" or "yes" in answer to my questions - it is so nice!  Before she started doing that she still had pretty obvious no and yes responses (just using body language), but she just seems so much more grown up now that she has started shaking her head.  I've also noticed that she definitely likes answering no much more than answering yes.  I think that she just likes that she has some control over the situation, and she's exploring the concept that not everything mommy suggests has to happen :-)  Asserting her independence and she's not even 1 yet...boy, am I in for it!

4.  Another first - I've heard it a couple of times today and it's so cute!!!  Addelyn says "uh-oh" and "oh no!" now when she drops something etc...she also has been turning her palms up in question for a week or two now...I'll try to get a picture and edit it in soon :-)

Finally, here's a video of Addelyn being her cheerful/playful self.  She usually gets into a very playful, very active mood about 1 hour or 30 minutes before bedtime, and I thought I'd get it on video just so everyone can see how adorable it is :-)

Stats:
No stats today - not much has changed since last time :-)  Finally, 2 posts in one month!

Fluent Gibberish and NO-NO!

b nm n , gh bbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbb  <--- that is Addelyn's contribution to the blog and also a lot like how she sounds these days :-)  Addelyn has become confident enough in her voice that she just babbles to herself now...it's so cute!  I think she sounds like an alien when she does it :-)

Addelyn's newest word is NO-NO!!  And the temper has developed along with it.  She now outright yells at me when she is upset about something - if she's not getting her way, it's NO-NO! NO-NO! NO-NO! broken up by a couple of high-pitched wines and angry-sounding yelling.  It's kind-of hard not to laugh at her at first, but after a while it gets pretty old!

The past week or so Addelyn has just been absorbing SO much!  For the first time, she really mimicks me very well, so she's speaking (a little) more clearly and, most importantly, she's learning TONS of signs!  According to my most likely incomplete list, Addelyn now regularly uses 29 signs and is inconsistently doing 6 more.  Here's a video of her showing of a few of them, as well as her knowledge of her body parts (it's a bit long...sorry):

At Addelyn's 9-month checkup the doctor said that she should be weaned from the bottle by her first birthday, so we're starting that.  We've begun replacing one bottle each day with a sippy cup of milk instead. She doesn't seem to mind too much, except that the milk doesn't flow as fast from the sippy cup as it does from her bottle, so she's drinking a little less for that feeding.  Hmmm...maybe we need to try a different type of sippy cup?  (the problem is finding a happy medium, because if it comes too fast then she just spits the excess out all over herself). 

In good news, Addelyn's clogged tear ducts finally seem to have cleared up!!! Yay!!!  She's had goobery eyes since she was born, and at her 9-month checkup the doctor said that if they didn't clear up by her 12-month checkup, then she'd have to have surgery, so we dodged that bullet - I'm so relieved!

Jake and I went on vacation to Italy this month - while we were gone Addelyn stayed at her Aunt Tara's house and got to play with cousins Kylie and Madi.  Based on the reports from my mom (who watched the girls during the day) and Tara, Addelyn had a LOT of fun!  She enjoyed watching the older girls play, but didn't like it so much that they got to eat different food than her, and Addelyn downright got upset when anybody got told no-no...(she's a sensitive one!).  We got back from Italy late at night, so Addelyn didn't see us until she woke up the following morning.  When she started crying, Tara and I both went in to get her.  She was expecting Tara, so she didn't even look at me and when I picked her up she got a little upset and wanted to go to Tara.  Well, I had missed her terribly, so I wasn't about to have that...we went and stood in front of the mirror, and as soon as she saw that it was mommy that had her she was all smiles!  She was pretty clingy that next few days, and even now she's much more cuddly than she's ever been, but I'm not complaining!  

The girls all matched!  Addelyn was mad that I made her stay that far away from
me for long enough to take the picture...she was feeling a bit clingy :-)

The weather is getting nice and with that we've been going outside a lot!  If we haven't gone outside to play at least once by late afternoon, Addelyn starts to get pretty upset and insistent...she's even learned the sign for "outside" and uses it to tell me when she wants to go out and play :-)  

Addelyn LOVES to swing - every time we go outside she makes a B-line to the swing!

Got her cool shades and her new helmet on and all ready to go for her first ever bike ride!

Attached to daddy's bike in her new ride

Stats:

Age: 11.5 months

Weight: 23 lbs

Length:  29ish inches

Drinks:  about 3-4 8oz bottles of milk per day (all of which is formula) one before her nap, one in the middle of the afternoon, and one before she goes to bed.

Eats: yogurt, and a fruit for breakfast; puffs, a veggie, and a cheese stick for lunch; and a fruit, and either a meat or noodles or something for dinner.  We just discovered that she likes peas!

Sleeps: 11-12 hours/night - 9pm-9am (most nights...sometimes she still wakes up in the middle)

Naps: 2-3 hours per day - her nap is 4 or 5 hours after she wakes up for the day 

Awake for: 2.5-5 hours at a time during the day.

Clothes size:  mostly 18 month, some 12 month

Motor skills: WALKING, dancing (in time no less), crawling well on hands and knees, standing standing alone well, pulling herself up to standing without any support, self feeding several things (as long as it's not too slippery)

other skills: putting balls into her toy (then the balls fall out and roll away and you do it all over again), clapping, waving, playing peekaboo, Does hand actions to songs like itsy bitsy spider and little bunny foo foo.
words:  mama, up, dada, nana (banana), "Aye" (light), "Bah" (ball), and "Ba (bath)" "ah duh" (all done), "buh buh" (puppy), hi, bye-bye, and NO-NO (is her newest), and I'm not even going to try to list all of the words that she tries to say, but doesn't say regularly.

signs: 29-35 that she does herself.