ONE

Dear Goose,
HAPPY BIRTHDAY TO YOU!!

You are ONE! It's so exciting! We had a lovely birthday party for you at the playground and you loved every minute of it. And then you fell asleep for the night at 6:30, perfection for everyone.

birthday cupcake for breakfast

At one year old, you are 29.3 inches tall, putting you in the 56%. You weigh 19lbs, 3oz, putting you in the 41%. You walk and run, though still looking a bit like a drunken sailor. First thing in the morning when you get out of bed, you like to waddle/run to your sister's room. You love to play with bags of things, putting stuff in, taking stuff out. You also love purses and will often be wearing at least two to walk around the house.

 with a purse and a flyswatter, you're ready for anything

gotta try on these clothes while investigating the kitchen

You still don't have any discernible words, though "ahda" usually means "yes" and you say "hi!" at appropriate times. And Dadadada is Daddy, though also just something you say a lot. And "Lie lie" sometimes means your sister and sometimes is just something you say. And sometimes "MOOOOOE!" means "more" or simply "I want to eat!"  We've been trying to sign to you, but you don't really have it yet. Sometimes you'll clap for more, but I'm not sure if you're really signing or just happily clapping. And when you want milk, you simply come up to me and pound my chest. Who needs signs or words? You communicate completely effectively! Also of complete adorableness is you waving for hello and goodbye.You make friends on every bus and train we ride and wave as they or we exit. You also wave to the bus and train when it leaves. And to the phone. 

General One Year old antics:

WALKING

Dear Goose,
It's official: you are a toddler. GAH! Though even though your preferred locomotor method is walking, you still scoot and crawl occasionally. And you still seem so far off from toddler temperament! But you just want to hang with the bigger kids, so you're walking. But only in the direction you want. I tried to rally you to walk to the laundry room yesterday and after a few minutes of trying to coax you out the door, I just scooped you up which was fine for us both.

11 months!

Dearest Goose,
You are SO CLOSE to walking! You take unassisted steps every day, sometimes 3, 4 or 5. We get very excited for you, while you seem to just think it's one more way of getting around. Your funny little one-legged crawl continues to serve you well and you have gotten much faster in the past few weeks with it. Your usual method of getting places is to pull yourself up, cruise and step a bit, sit back down, crawl a few paces, come up on your tush and turn 90 degrees, then crawl more. It's quite the combination of moves.  Your path to walking seems consistent with your personality: why rush? Whereas some kids take steps on day and run the next, you are content to be where you are. My zen baby. I am trying to take lessons from you.

 The Goose's crawl

Just standing around, eating a onesie that I will never wear (sorry Daddy)

Your top teeth STILL haven't broken through, but I seem them all so close to the surface. Any day now they will come. (I've been thinking that for 6 weeks at least). Again, I'm the one getting ahead of myself. They will come when they come. After a few months of resisting the chamomile drops, you now suck them down happily.

You have also mastered drinking water. Holy moly little Goose, it's the cutest thing! Your preferred water vessel is any of your sister's water bottles, though you're also okay with any water bottle that belongs to someone else. You drink out of straws, out of spouts and try to drink out of cups, but as soon as there's any opening, you stick your hand right in. Every time I'm drinking water, we both end up wearing some of it.

 Most of this cup of water got dumped on your shirt, but it's cool

Other favorite pastimes these days are pulling bookmarks out of books, taking Q-tips out of their box (and throwing them in the bathtub if possible), taking tissues out of their box, banging out notes on the toy pianos and Simon, taking dirty dishes out of the dishwasher and throwing stacking cups and puzzle pieces. Just today you've started enjoying putting things BACK where you got them from, but the ratio of chaos to calm is still about 100:1. It's pretty stinking cute. 

 Oh, you wanted to save your place? HA!

Adventures in the snack drawer

Dear Goose,
Your favorite place to explore and play is the snack drawer. I spied on you a little bit today!

10 months!

Dear Silly Goose,
At 10 months, you stand unassisted for a few seconds at a time. You still only have 2 teeth, but have been boogery, uncomfortable and wanting chamomile ice cubes for a full two weeks, so more are clearly on their way. I hope several break through, you've been so uncomfortable at times for a long time!  At the height of your discomfort, we broke down and gave you Tylenol, which helped immediately. While I had hoped to be able to keep you medication-free for your first year, that's a stupid ideal to hold on to while such a sweet baby is in pain.

While we're still not 100% ready to call it, you pretty much say "mama" and "more." The way you say "more" is like MUUUH! and you say it when someone is eating and you are not eating. Occasionally you say it when you want more of something, but basically MUUUH means "I want to eat, too!"  And mama is, well, mama, and it melts my heart every time.

We suspect you have an egg sensitivity or allergy because the few times you've eating egg you've vomited shortly thereafter. We'll get you tested after you're one. If you are allergic, it's not a crazy strong reaction since you haven't had a problem with my eating eggs and you've had some things with egg in it without incident.

You still LOVE to blow raspberries and the four of us often have raspberry parties in the mornings while we're all snuggling before getting out of bed. You happily blow them at all of us and we blow them right back. Your sister blows very wet ones, which you think is hilarious.

You are still a little peanut, wearing 6 month onesies, though some 12 month pants are too short. You eat with gusto, loving berries, peas, beans, sausage and oatmeal. And milk, of course. You fall asleep for the evening between 7 and 8pm and sleep until 4 or 5ish when you wake to nurse, then go right back to sleep. On the days that I don't work (only 2!) you nurse with gusto when we all get out of bed around 7am. The other days, you have breakfast with your sister: oatmeal, fruit, beans or coconut milk yogurt while I pump a bottle for you to have a few hours later. Your naps are all over the place, pretty much because I am all over the place. On a perfect day, you'll sleep for an hour in the morning and another hour or longer in the afternoon. Most days, it's 3 half hour naps every few hours. Not ideal, but you do sleep well through the night most nights. Thank you for that, it's quite considerate.

 delicious keys!

zzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz

You love to explore. You go through boxes and bags and my wallet with great enthusiasm. This photo was taken about 15 minutes after we got home, immediately after the apartment had been cleaned. You went through all the books and puzzles on the shelves, all the toys in the toy bins and finally climbed up to get the remote controls.

Busy busy Goose!

For all your exploration energy, you're really not into books at all. You nurse while I read your sister's bedtime books every night, but every time I try to read you a book just for you, you slam the book closed, and/or try to eat it. I'll keep trying, though, there are SO many wonderful books waiting for you to discover them.

hmmm, looks delicious

Nine Months Old!

Dear Sweet Goose,
You are 9 months old now! You have your bottom front teeth cutting through the gums, the one on your left is almost all the way up and the right one is about half a centimeter behind. You are on the move these days, with a funny little crawl with one leg in front of the other. It looks like you have a kickstand. You don't go all that fast, but you always get where you're going. Most of the time you'll "crawl" a few paces, then sit up and clap for yourself. Sometimes you clap even if you haven't gone anywhere, just for sitting.

At your 9 month check up, you were 28 inches long and 16 pounds.

You play peek a boo with your coat or a blanket or someone's scarf. Pull it over your face, then slam it down with a wide grin. You laugh reliably at things now: your sister tossing keys in the air, Daddy making faces at you, or bringing things to your face and then away from your face quickly, me dancing and singing with you in my arms. You still laugh unexpectedly, too, and that is so funny. Your laugh lightens any mood and usually gets at least one other person laughing with you.

You pull yourself up to standing and try to cruise. There aren't a lot of great cruising places in our house, which frustrates you. You sill stand at the open snack drawer for a LONG time, shimming side to side and exploring the drawer.

You have one dimple on your right cheek. Holy moly, is it adorable when you smile. One perfect dimple. Come on with your cute self!!!

You still love to eat and sometimes eat more than we can keep up with. Beans, peas, broccoli, cauliflower, sausage, turkey, chicken, ground beef, apples, banana, blueberries,avocado and sweet potato are all in your regular rotation, plus baby food puffs, pouches, applesauce and pizza crust. Today I was sharing a salad with you and when I ran out of sweet potato (because you ate them all, dearest Goose) you started squawking at me! You wanted more and there wasn't any more. You were mollified by some very dark chocolate, but it was quite funny how irate you were.

You're moving around so much more during the day and also at night. All of a sudden you're rolling around in bed and even sitting up sometimes. We hope this is only while you're body is getting used to doing these new fantastic things and you'll go back to being an easy sleeper to cuddle with. Well, even if not, we're still going to keep up with all the snuggles. You're so so so delicious.

8 Months Old!

Dear Sweet Goose,
You are now 8 months old! You are so so curious, loving digging through boxes of toys more than playing with any one of them. You love to eat, sometimes gumming an entire banana between milk feedings, or insisting on more strawberries than what I've put in front of you.

You can move backwards, both on your belly and while sitting. You still keep your belly on the floor in the all four position, so crawling doesn't seem super close, but you also try to pull yourself to stand at every chance, so I know you have the strength to do it. You get those hips off the ground as soon as there's something to grab onto.

You are chatting more, stringing together more sounds and pitches. You say dada, but not in context yet. You say LIE-A, which may turn into your sister's name soon; she remains your favorite person.

You are such a happy person. You smile and coo so often. You get excited when you see dogs, when you hear music you like (the band Chvrches and The Wheels on the Bus), when your sister talks to you. You love other kids, too; calmly letting bigger kids kiss your forehead or stroke your hands and mapping the faces of other babies with your hands. When you're upset, it passes quickly.

You seem taller every day, but don't have chubby baby rolls. You eat with gusto, so it's not that you're not well fed. It's just that you've been in the lanky growth phase for a few months. I suspect you'll stop growing taller and start fattening up one of these days. In the meantime, you still fit into 3-6 month onesies, though are wearing 12 month pants. I can't wait until your 9 month check up so we can see how much you've grown!

Sweet goose, we just adore you so much!