So here it is. Madame is a year old, and I'm not nearly as freaked out as I thought I'd be. Things are happening so quickly with her that it barely feels like I have time to look back at what she's accomplished in this past month, let alone be freaked out. But for blog's sake, I'll try.
- She's listening. I swear she understands everything I say. If I ask her where her belly is, she'll pull up her shirt. If I ask her to show me the duck she'll point to it in her book, and if I tell her "no" sometimes, sometimes she'll even stop. The downside to this is I've got to really watch my language now, because if I'm not careful her first word will be "douchebag." And this will not please modern day mom, believe me.
- Old toys are new again. Some toys, like her cups and that five rings on a peg toy were great for a while. She'd grab them, pull them apart and eventually chew on them. But now those old chestnuts are showing some new life. A couple of weeks ago I was walking past her pile of toys and I noticed the rings were placed back on the peg (not in the correct order which is how I knew it was her). Now she's stacking the cups and taking things out of boxes and putting them back in like the genius that she is.
- Six choppers and a lot of gumming. We're in full-on food experimentation now, and she's doing pretty well. Aside from the typical finger foods, we're giving her fruit, potatoes, pretzels - anything we're confident she can dissolve and mash up with her gums. She's got six teeth now and even they're all in the front of her mouth they're not slowing her down from chewing. If any thing they're encouraging her.
- Cruising. Pretty much as soon as she started to crawl she was pulling up on stuff (furniture, walls, whatever she could steady herself with), but now she's transferring from one piece of furniture to the next and walking the entire length of the couch all by herself. The other day I even followed her completely up the stairs, which when she finally made it she turned around and looked at me with the biggest smile ever - kind of like, "Did you just see what I did?!?"