I’m 10 days late on this one, but Arwyn has turned the big O-N-E. It has seemed like an immensely long and incredibly short year. But doesn’t it always?
This time, baby number two, we thought we knew what to expect. Turns out, we were wrong. We were in for a wild ride. From the very beginning, she’s thrown us for a bit of a loop. Pregnancy was different and harder. She was born 6 days early (sweet relief). Her labor was short and sweet (praise Jesus!!). She was a terrible sleeper, though she’s getting better. She couldn’t handle dairy in my breastmilk. And now, she seems to be outgrowing most of both of those.
At first, she was awake every 2-3 hours, which is normal. And then it was 3-4 hours and we were like “ok, this is progress.” But then it kind of stalled out there. It wasn’t until about January (10 months old) that she started sleeping more like 6-8 hours. And boy was that bliss! I’m happy to say that at a year old, she sleeps from 8:30 (or 9) until about 6, nurses, and then usually goes back to sleep until 8. She still takes one, sometimes two naps. If it’s one, it’s usually significantly longer (like 4 hours a few days ago!). It’s still not perfect, and we don’t go to bed on time often, but it’s significantly better than at 6 months.
And the dairy thing is not an issue any more. In fact, she’s started eating yogurt and drinking cows milk like it was no big deal. Speaking of eating, this kid has been going through a growth spurt or something! She only nursing at bed time and first thing in the morning, so she’s pretty much exclusively on solids now. She love black beans, avocado (at least for a while), banana, peas and bread! Anything that’s small enough to be chomped by her chompers is fair game. She has seven of those chompers too. 4 on top and 3 on bottom. Just waiting for that last one to complete the set for now.
It’s so much fun to watch her personality awaken and come out each day. She adores her big sister and loves to laugh (at her and just in general). Maybe she’ll be the class clown. And she loves to dance. She can stand assisted, but not alone yet. She will walk around things, but isn’t really interested in actually walking. Crawling is much faster. Plus she hates have her hands held, so walking with someone is not her idea of fun.
She’s finally started to do some signs, just in the last couple of weeks. She knows “more” and “all done” which is super helpful. She’s just started “drink (milk).” But she doesn’t have many verbal words yet. They’re pretty much limited to “yeah!” and gibberish. No mama or dada yet, but she’ll get there. I think when she starts talking, she might just start with full sentences because that’s what her gibberish sounds like. She’s also started giving kisses, which is super sweet, if not a little wet, since it’s usually with her tongue hanging out.
To celebrate, we started with dedicating her to the Lord. It was such a sweet thing to have both of her Papa’s pray over her and our family in front of our church. We have lifted her up to God. She is not ours, but his, and we pray that she will know that more each day as she grows.
After church, we had an elephant birthday party!
I’m kind of over big birthday parties (already? I know!) so we decided to keep it to family. It was small and intimate and just perfect.
The smash cake. I dabbled in making my own fondant for the elephants, but stuck with my go-to of butter cream for the cake frosting. I’m just not comfortable enough with fondant to make that leap. Maybe next time?
She looooved it! She ate an amazing amount.
Opening presents was a bit lost on her, so she needed some help from big sister (whether she wanted it or not).
And big sister did get a gift of her own. (Thanks Gpa Max and Gma Sue!)
She got lots of fun presents and some especially some cute outfits. She hugged each one of them.
While it was technically from Nana and Papa, this is my favorite gift. Mostly because I picked it out. It’s her first real baby doll!
Kisses! She loves her all ready. Happy birthday baby cakes!