And the results are in!

Emily finally had her 12 month check-up yesterday. She is doing great, but she is definitely a peanut. She has actually fallen in her height and weight percentiles, but her head growth is holding steady. She currently weighs 17.5 pounds (5th - 10th percentile), is 27.25 inches long (5th - 10th percentile), and has a head circumference of 18 inches (50th percentile). The doctor wasn't concerned about the decrease in her height and weight percentiles because they are still proportionate to each other and because she claims that it is common for growth to slow around the 1 year mark. I guess this explains, however, why some of Emily's sleepers that she wears regularly are still 6-9 month size!

 (Gratuitous photo of Emily "helping" with folding the laundry)

Emily is still working on her walking, and I think that she is getting more confident on her feet, but it is still manifesting in just a few occasional baby steps at a time. Definitely not full-blown walking yet. Also, in the past week or so her attitude towards food seems to have shifted. Whereas before she was perfectly content with her baby food, and seemed indifferent to "big people food", now she is very interested in what we are eating and definitely more open to trying some of whatever it is. We have developed a routine in the morning where she helps me eat my bagel or my toast and she is getting pretty aggressive with it. She always points to it and I'll say " Mama's bagel" so then she'll try to ask for it by saying "ma ma ma ma" all the while crawling all over me and trying to steal it out from under me. Now, if only we could get her to take such an interest in proteins we'd be all set. She loves her carbs, is OK with her fruits and veggies, but will gladly drop any meat, egg, or fish on the floor without even trying it.

Happy 1st Birthday Emily!

Yes, our little baby turned one year old on Friday. Of course, she had no clue what was going on. We got her some balloons and a little cake that was shaped like a ladybug and covered with red frosting and accented with black frosting spots. We had to wait until Saturday to celebrate, though. She missed her afternoon nap on Friday and melted down pretty early. Poor thing. When we finally did celebrate she acted as though she was scared of the ladybug cake. Every time we brought it close to her she started to cry. She was mildly interested in the frosting and had a couple of tastes, but was more into playing with the cake than eating it:

http://youtu.be/9ZToWiCZBAc

She absolutely loved her balloons, however. She is still pointing to them and saying "ba ba", which is her word for balloon (and ball for that matter).

Saturday was also a big day in that Emily actually took two steps all on her own. She didn't even seem aware that she did it. Now that I know that she can, though, I am more actively trying to give her opportunities to practice taking steps. It seems like two is still the max, but we'll keep working on it. For now, she gets around really well with the infamous crawl, which I finally managed to capture on film:

http://youtu.be/F6t_PpF0DNg