As per usual, I'm behind on posting our monthly updates on Stella. The good news is, now that she's a year old, I am no longer going to feel pressured to post updates about her in a timely, monthly fashion. What a relief because she is changing so rapidly and doing so much more and more each day that there is no way I could keep up with it!
Stella turned 12 months on September 22nd. We had a pretty amazing party for her, and I'll share pictures of it in a future post and tell you all about how my thoughts on her first birthday party went from small and simple to rather large and extravagant. :)
For now, let's talk about our sweet baby girl at a year old already. I took Stella in for her one-year appointment, and she is doing great. We are so blessed to have a healthy and very active daughter.
Weight: 24.6 lbs.
Height: 31 inches
Stella's weight is evening out a bit as we knew it would. She is walking like a pro now, and I'm sure that must be burning extra calories.
Stella is kind of hit or miss on what she prefers to eat, and we have had a fairly hard time getting her to eat at regular mealtimes. I'm really not worried about it, though, because I know she's growing well, and she does eat. Just not always when we feel it's necessary. She's also still nursing, which I'm sure has something to do with it.
She's wearing 18 and 24 month clothing now. Size 18 month tops and 24 month bottoms seem to fit her the best. And, it looks like we're going to have to pretty much replenish her entire wardrobe when fall and winter hits. I'm starting to attempt that now by shopping at my favorite consignment shop.
I love that Stella is communicating with us so much more now. She has added a few more words to her repertoire and is starting to try and repeat words after us. That is both scary and fun! Her favorite thing to do lately is to wave and say, "hi!" to everyone we see. She has now added, "bye!" as well. It is pretty dang adorable if I say so myself. Now I'm just trying to encourage her to reserve one "hi!" and one "bye!" for each person rather than repeating them incessantly. She's saying a few others, like "puppy," "duck," "bee," "button (for belly button)", "ball," but her favorite is "Stickle," which means Skittle. It is so cute!
One of my favorite new developments is her newfound love for books. She's always enjoyed chewing on them, but she is now so excited to read them! Stella has started gathering books and bringing them to our laps for us to read to her. Finally! I've been trying to get her to let me read to her for months now. So fun!
Stella has also started loving on some of her baby dolls and will hold them and kiss them as we ask her to. It is just too precious.
She also cut even more teeth, and I think she's up to 12 now. I should count them! We're trying to introduce teeth brushing to her, but it's not going too great. She loves the idea of brushing her teeth but it's been difficult to actually get them cleaned.
Shortly after her one-year birthday, we also experienced our first-ever trip to the ER with Stella. She was running a pretty high fever, and we were nervous. Fortunately, she was diagnosed with a virus known as the "common cold." Classic first-time parents, I suppose. :) It was kind of a yucky virus, and I am thankful it's behind us now!
Her sleep is still not great. Stella hasn't slept through the night since the end of March (and that was a one-time deal), but we are so used to it now that it isn't really even much of an issue. She is down to one nap on most days, and it's still not super scheduled. I try to keep it within the same general timeframe, but sometimes life gets in the way. We have been doing better with a consistent initial bedtime on most nights, though. So, for now, we're doing ok in the sleep department.
Enjoy the last of the Stella monthly pictures! I am pretty amazed I actually kept up with them, and I'm pretty happy to let them go. Don't worry. I'll still attempt to keep blogging and posting pictures, but I'm glad I won't have that pressure anymore.
