Lucy and Ellory
are 13 months! It's crazy that we are this far already. This last
year was such a dichotomy at times- so hard, yet so good; tiring, yet
also joyful; long, yet short, etc. I think our whole family grew a
lot this last year for the better. We are busy busy, but we are in a
good place. Watching Lucy and Ellory grow up is a blessing and it's
so fun!
Stats/Doctor
visits: Very thankful to not
have any doctors visits this month- we've been healthy!
Teeth: No
teeth this month.
Feeding: The
biggest news with feeding is that we are done nursing! Right before
their birthday, we started weaning. First, I quit pumping for their
afternoon bottle time (before starting to wean, we were down to
morning nursing, before nap nursing, late afternoon bottle/pump, and
before bed nursing). Then, each week I cut out a nursing session
until we were done, so it took about a month. Overall, it went very
well! Lucy and Ellory both like whole milk and haven't had any issues
with it thankfully. At first, we mixed a little of my milk or formula
with whole milk, but now they are down to just whole milk and that's
it. They now have sippy cups when they wake up, followed by breakfast
right away (usually yogurt or a puree and some cheerios), lunch,
sippy cups before afternoon nap, a 7-8 oz bottle when they wake up,
supper, puree for bedtime snack, and 7-8 oz bottle before bed. They
have their sippy cups during each meal also. They still have a few
bottles (with whole milk), because I didn't want to completely cut
out both nursing and bottles at the same time, and we are still
giving them a little time to get used drinking more from cups. They
handle it well, but don't drink very much out of cups yet compared to
bottles, so we wanted to make sure they were still getting enough
milk. We are trying to lessen now heating up the bottles (they still
like the milk better warm).
For
solid foods, they eat pretty much everything now! Whatever we eat is
what they eat. It's always a big mess to clean up afterwards, but
they like it. Ellory is more selective and doesn't eat as much as
Lucy, but Lucy eats anything and everything and lots of it! They need
bibs now for all the messes, but Lucy usually always rips hers off.
They are on a “normal” breakfast, lunch, dinner schedule now,
with a bit more milk and a bedtime snack thrown in.
Diapers/clothes: Wearing
size 3 diapers and 12 month and 12-18 month clothes. They are now
wearing a size 4 diaper at night, because they were starting to leak
out pretty regularly in a 3, and switching to a 4 at night helped a
lot.
Sleeping: Yay
for good sleepers! When they were nursing, they used to nurse in the
morning and then go back to sleep, but during weaning we tried to cut
that out. For awhile they still woke up early and had a bottle
instead and then went back to sleep, but for the last two weeks
they've been sleeping all the way through the night and skipping that
milk session entirely. Now they sleep all the way through from about
10:30-9:45. They take an afternoon nap from 1:30-3:45ish, and an
evening nap from 7-8ish. Having a consistent sleep routine is great
for all of us! Lucy seems to need a bit more sleep, probably because
she's moving more, and she's usually the first to sleep and last to
wake.
Words: Lucy
says dada and a lot of baby talk. Ellory is saying a few words! She
says dada, mama, Norah, baby, bath, and bye-bye.
Developments: Lucy's
biggest development is walking! She walks more and more everyday. She
took her first steps right before their birthday, at 12.5 months was
taking 10+ steps, and now is almost full time walking. She loves
walking and is quite content with her new abilities! It's so sweet to
watch her tiny body walking around. She's still a little wobbly, but
does quite well. Ellory is not interested in walking yet, and will
just sit back down if we try to get her to walk. Lucy is more active
for sure, so maybe she'll be into sports, and Ellory maybe will be
our speech/music girl. Ellory loves music and dancing. Outsiders
wouldn't know that though, because she is very shy and hesitant in
new situations and with anyone non-family. Lucy was usually more
outgoing in public, but both have had more separation anxiety lately
and like to stay close to Kley and I. (We tried to take them to the
nursery at church for the first time, and it didn't go well, which
didn't help the separation anxiety issue!) On February 28, the week
after their birthday, we switched to their convertible car seats,
which also meant putting their big girl seats on the stroller too.
They handled it fine and like their seats! It's a bit more work now
loading all three into the car, but it's not too bad because it's
also getting nicer outside, so we walk more places now. They are
starting to try cause and effect type things, like building a tower
and knocking it down, and matching things, like shape sorters or
puzzles.
Favorites: Lucy
loves being on the go, walking and climbing. Though, now that she is
walking more, she isn't climbing as much as she used to. Ellory tries
to wink if you wink at her, and she loves to put any baby blankets or
the kitchen towel over her head and play peekaboo. Both girls love to
give kisses, high fives, and recently they started doing “so big,”
which is adorable. Lucy likes to spit and scream (like just scream
for fun because she can make the noise). They both like to take
baths, be outside (Lucy especially gets excited when we put her coat
on), dolls, play down the basement, see what's in the fridge or
dishwasher if they can sneak in when it's open, and Ellory is
especially fond of the instruments. We try hard to keep the bathroom
door closed, but they love to unroll the toilet paper if they can get
at it. We love you both so much!
They weren't in the best moods for these pictures and not very smiley, so this is the best we got!