Sadie Lady-One year update!!!

Baby Sadie is quickly approaching toddler-hood!  It's gone so fast but been so sweet.  This past year has been wonderful and chock full or purely joyful moments giggling with this little girl.  It was not until she was 10 months old that I had my first glimpses of her being anything but content and smiling.  Even with the shrieking that is now part of most meals (this girl loves her food) Sadie is still a pretty mellow, content baby. 

In the last month she went from needing to fidget with a toy or book to sit and listen to me read to really loving being read to.  I LOVE this turn of events as everyone else in our family loves books.  It's been fun to see her start to point at pictures and flip pages when you ask her to.  Almost every time I sit in the big comfy chair in her room to nurse she climbs out of my lap to reach into a basket of books.  She also occasionally will use her rarely seen sign-language skills to ask for "more" books.

Speaking of sign-language, we started at 6 months with her and she seemed to catch up quickly initially signing and saying "mo" at 7 months.  However, she hardly does it at all now!  Don't know why.  She has adapted an arm flapping that is close to the "all done" sign to mean "more" and "all done" when she's in her high chair.  She's said "mo" and "all done" a few times here and there but for the most part doesn't.  Oh well, it'll come :-)  She can say "dada" and "mama" and "ella" but doesn't use them often or necessarily to designate a certain person.  She understands a lot though. If you ask her to kiss "mama" or "dada" she will go to the right person :-) Though she's not saying a lot of words reliably, she has been known to say crazy things like "french fry," "necklace," "are we there?" and "under the table." I know.  Weird.  She's a moody "talker" at this point and will sometimes babble endlessly which we find hilariously fun to listen to and other times won't make a peep.

As far as sleeping, she naps about 2 hrs after she wakes up in the morning (she's gone through a stretch recently of getting up between 6 and 6:30am-it's wretched.  In our house, that's still night).  She naps 1-2hrs and then is up til about 1 or 2pm and then naps another 1-2 hrs.  As a general rule she'll nap 3 hrs a day so if it's 1 hr in the morning, she'll usually do 2 in the afternoon or vice versa.  For night time, we try to put her down around 7 but it usually ends up being between 7 and 8 (or 8:30 on Family Dinner nights).  She usually sleeps 11-12 hrs.  She is (thankfully) like Ella in that we pretty much never hear from her in the middle of the night.  It's months between night wakings and they usually happen if she's sick or didn't sleep well during the day.  So thankful for another good sleeper! 

Playing with her buddies D and J

I am still nursing three times a day at this point.  We dropped the 4th feeding (4pm) around 11 months because she just wasn't that interested in it and only ate for about 5 minutes.  We're trying to drop the midday feeding now (before her afternoon nap) partially because we're trying to introduce cow's milk so she really doesn't need to nurse again after lunch. At this point she'll only drink the cow's milk warm, in a bottle, from Chris.  If I try to give it to her she tries to rip my shirt off to nurse.  And though she's an expert with the sippy cup (which took Ella MUCH longer) she'll only drink water out of it.  This seems weird but everyone I've mentioned it to says their baby does the same thing. At this point I'm planning to stick with nursing twice a day for a while longer-until Sadie self-weans and is no longer interested, or until I'm just really done (which I'm starting to think might be soonish-I REALLY want to go away with my husband overnight!  It's been well over a year and I miss getting away sans kids). But, it was a huge goal and accomplishment for me to nurse Sadie for a year after being forced to stop nursing early with Ella because of having surgery. So, I'm glad to have hit this milestone!

Food wise, we're pretty much done with baby food.  It's tempting to still give it to her because she'll happily eat it, it's faster, and she gets a lot more vegetables than if I give her table food.  Sadie eats a lot quantity wise (more than Ella at every meal, hands down) but as we transition to only table food, it's hard to get a handle on what she'll eat!  She'll LOVE something (blueberries, grapes, cheerios, peas, carrots, eggs, cheese) and eat lots and lots of it and then get sick of it (I assume) and refuse to eat it again the next week.  So, I'm trying to not indulge her when she gets obsessed with something and maybe that way she'll continue to like it long term.  She will always eat meat though.  Pretty much any kind of poultry, red meat, fish will get sucked off her tray with everything else left untouched!  Not sure where this comes from since neither Chris or I are big meat eaters/lovers and Ella barely touches it unless it has the word "nugget" attached and comes with a  dipping sauce. Nonetheless, baby carnivore is  not to hard to please and I hope she continues to have a healthy appetite!

          Just this week (12.5 months) she's really starting to pull up on things and cruise tentatively.  She's loved walking holding onto our hands for months but is getting braver about trying to hold on to furniture (or Ella, or the dog) to try to walk.  I keep hearing stories from friends with little boys about how they flail off of couches or just let go of things and fall on the faces.  Sadie is not like this. She is definitively cautious.  She will sit down and crawl if she thinks she might fall.  She will NOT walk unless she has two hands on pretty solid things.  As a physically cautious person, I'm ok with this tentative approach.  She'll learn even if she is a late walker like Ella. I'm cool with that :-)

Overall, Sadie is a curious, joyful girl.  She's come out of her separation anxiety quite a bit and though she prefers me and Chris, she's started to go to people she doesn't know pretty well!  She even had a successful service in Bridgekids at church a few weeks ago after months of getting called out of the service.  She's a little fickle though.  Chris' mom babysat the other night and she refused to take a bottle and go to sleep.  Bummer.  She'll get there :-)  She's definitely my more attached, less independent little girl and I'm ok with that even if there are moments it feels a little stiffling. 

Speaking of personality differences, Sadie is my introvert.  She was largely terrified at her birthday party (as were most other introverts there-someone counted 68 people in my not-so-big house!).  She doesn't cry with large crowds but does adopt a deer in headlights posture and would rather sit in a corner with an interesting toy (these days, anything that makes music) than schmooze with all the people in the room.  As an extrovert who married an introvert, I recognize these characteristics and love seeing her preferences emerge. 

Sadie LOVES her big sister and 90% of the time they get a long great.  Occasionally Ella gets in trouble for snatching toys for Sadie or stealing her food or dragging her from room to room but so far so good.  Ella has just started to complain sometimes that Sadie gets something she didn't get or that something isn't fair and I expect much more of this rivalry to come.  That said, I'm thankful for a pretty rivalry-less first year.  Ella is a huge help with Sadie and usually is happy to entertain her, rescue her from dangers (like the bathroom or small toys), and get her snacks (because then she can usually score a snack for herself!)  Ella loves having matching clothes with Sadie and talks about how much fun it will be when they can share a room with bunk beds or Sadie can come for "sleepovers" in Ella's trundle bed.  It's wonderful to see their relationship develop and I'm so glad they'll get to learn lots of life lessons about sharing, life not being fair, people being different etc. from having a sister.  I must say, Ella is already begging for another baby so I'd say year one with a sister has been a great success, by the grace of God!