12months

12 Months old

This was the month of the runny nose. First Etta had a miserable cold for the week of her first birthday, the next week I got it, then a week later Etta’s nose started to run again. She’d been wonderfully healthy during her first year, with only two previous cases of the sniffles, and now she had suffered two bad colds in less than a month. I started to wonder if she had an allergy instead of a viral infection, and how was I to know if her ears were hurting, or if she had a sore throat?

I did my best to keep her comfortable, propping up one end of the crib with phone books to ease her congestion, giving her two or three warm menthol baths in a steamy bathroom each day, and allowing her to nurse frequently instead of encouraging her to eat "real" food. (She’s always been a light eater and this month nearly gave up solid food altogether while she was sick). One thing that I did a lot of this month was take her on late night walks through the neighborhood when she was too miserable to sleep. At 20 pounds she still fit in the Baby Bjorn front carrier, although she was really too long for it. I’d get her all bundled up, tie a warm hat on her head, strap her onto chest, slip a quilted bunting bag over her, and wrap a warm coat around the two of us. Many nights it was clear and below freezing.

Language Development

Etta has the following words:

Dada (actually means daddy)    Woof Woof ("uuh-uuh")     Kitty ("Kee-yee")
Doggie (sounds like kitty but is said in a deeper tone)       Baby ("Bee-ee")
Mama (means mama)         Ma’am ma’am (means wants food or nursing)

She no longer says "Uh-oh," which really surprises us. She still throws things off her highchair tray and watches it hit the floor, but she no longer comments on it. We really miss her dramatic "Uh-uh-uh-oh."

Etta is doing a lot more babbling to herself, humming as she’s nursing, and vocalizing along to music. Her range of sounds is limited to just a few consonants and vowels, but she alters the tone and pitch for variation.

She’s an expert pointer now, pointing at things she recognizes or things she wants. For awhile she indicated her desire by holding out her hand in the direction of the object she wanted and opening and closing it while nodding her head. Now she points, looks at me, I ask her if she wants an object she’s pointing to, and then she nods enthusiastically. Actually, she’ll nod "yes" to any question posed to her! Daddy jokes around by asking Etta if she likes the smell of poopy diapers, to which she nods "yes," and everyone laughs. Poor Etta! The butt of our jokes!

Sleep

Since Etta was so sickly this month, her sleep schedule was all over the place. On average she sleeps about 10 hours a night and takes two one hour naps during the day, for a total of 12 hours shut-eye.   With colds and teething she’s stopped sleeping through the night and is often up two or three times crying piteously. She still falls asleep nursing 90% of the time, but when’s she’s been too sick or unsettled to nurse she either falls asleep with me walking her outside bundled on my chest, or in her crib with daddy or me patting her back (and pleading under our breath for her to stop crying/squirming/fussing/kicking). I’ve tried a few times this month to put her in her crib when she’s sleepy, and "let" her fall asleep on her own, but she pops up onto her feet instantly and begins screaming while knocking her teeth against the crib rail (and she’s already chipped one tooth, despite my padding the rails with folded-over quilts).

Eating

New foods tried this month: scrambled egg, brown rice, whole milk to drink

Favorite finger foods: chicken, turkey, potato, peas, Cheerios, goldfish
crackers, corn, canned fruit chunks (rinsed of syrup),
pasta, chunks of tofu, grains of rice.

Favorite jarred foods: spinach & potato, peach-oat-banana, chicken sweet
    potato, winter squash, pears & raspberry

Other foods tolerated: baby cereal mixed with blueberries, chunks of
    banana, cottage cheese, vanilla creamtop yogurt.

Etta’s eating habits remain unimpressive. She’ll eat a few bites and then start throwing her food or doing "windshield wiper" arms through the food on her tray. We can only put one or two pieces of food on her tray at a time. For spoon feeding she’ll initially resist, arms flapping, until we shove a spoonful in her mouth unexpectedly. If she likes what she tastes, then she’ll open up eagerly for a few more bites before losing interest. It’s a rare meal that she’ll eat a whole 4 ounce jar of food. I’ve given her her own spoon but she either chews it or just bangs it on her tray a few times before hurling it to the floor.