Autumn Makes Me Sing: Thirteen Months

Dear Autumn,

The past few weeks have been a mix of easy times and hard times, but the easy times far outweigh the hard this time. We've had some sleep issues and some clingyness, but we've also seen the independent streak in you start to grow. We are able to let you roam the house more with more confidence on our part that you won't get into much. You like to go into the front room and look for the cats and pull on the fronds of the plant in there. You always stop to point at the cat food because you know that is off limits. While I'm making us lunch you like to open up cabinets and take things out. Of course you leave them all over the floor and Daddy and I have learned how to navigate the Sea of Tupperware pretty successfully. The clingy thing has shown itself in both new situations/people and when you really want something. If you decide it is time to be picked up you wedge yourself between me and the cabinet (as I am usually making lunch or a snack), push me back and wrap your arms around my knees, throw your head back and stare up at me. You are usually not upset, but it is very hard to get away from you without knocking you over and making the situation worse. You've started saying, "uppah" which makes it hard to resist, so I pick you up if I am able. If not, there have been a few times where you have thrown yourself down and whined for .05 seconds until you see something else you want. When we are out and about and a new person comes up to us or acknowledges us your immediate reaction is to put your head on my shoulder and grab my shirt. You usually warm up pretty quickly, but a few times the admirer has had to vacate the premises. This is such a switch from our very outgoing child. But then you will go and act like you did on Friday night. We went out for Mexican and we were sat right in the path of the waitstaff and every time a guy came out you said "HI!!" and pointed. And if they didn't respond you'd throw your head back and say "HI!!" again and watch them walk behind you upside down. Most of the time you could get them to react because you are persistent!

You still have 8 teeth, but I wonder sometimes what you are working on in there.

I've found that if I want to you be more easy going during outings it helps to let you walk around outside for awhile before putting you in the car. This will become a problem once our 12 days of Winter in Houston are over. I do not do heat! And if you don't have pants on your legs get all bumpy after being on the grass. We usually spend about an hour outside after lunch, mostly spent sitting at the sewer manhole dropping things down the holes:

Drain Fun from Deb on Vimeo.

Or sitting in the French drain:

French Drain from Deb on Vimeo.

Or pulling the neighbor's flowers off the plant and sometimes eating them:

He Loves Me... from Deb on Vimeo.

Or falling:

Hi Momma, Oops! from Deb on Vimeo.

Splat! from Deb on Vimeo.

We successfully managed to go from 4 bottles of formula a day to 3 cups of milk and one bottle of formula a day. It really wasn't as hard as I imagined it to be. The first few days of the milk introduction you weren't too interested in it. But you have warmed up to it really well. You call milk "bot" or "bach" (I can't tell which) which I think is a carryover from "bottle". Green beans are "bee", cheese is "cheeeeze", water is "waar", cereal bar is "bar", and when you point, rock back and forth, and grunt, that means you want a yogurt melt. We have to hide those out of sight lest you go crazy focusing on them.

The brace is gone! Gone! The doctor said your hip is PERFECT! Perfect! And that this is a great example of how to treat this without surgery. As I was thinking how much I never want to go to this office again he said, "When she breaks a bone, bring her here!" very cheerfully. Ugh. But we already know that your hypothetical future sibling will hypothetically have to get his/her hypothetical hip ultrasounded "just for kicks" as your pediatrician said. It does run in families, it is more common in girls, but whether she feels anything or not, it sounds like we will be taking that baby for an ultrasound and then back to the doctor for interpretation. What is funny is that I put it on a pile of things to be put away in the attic and you found it and have been carrying it around the house. I'd rather not see it, but you seem to enjoy it.

Your understanding of the world around you continues to impress us. You know so many animals (butterfly, tiger, chameleon, cockatoo, wombat, woodpecker, dog, cat, fish, duck, koala, panda, peacock, whale, alligator, the list really does go on and on). You love to say "duck" and "cat". Dog is you pursing your lips imitating Momma saying "woof woof" with her lips pursed. And then you point out the window because when you hear the dogs barking I've told you that they are "outside". And the window means outside to you. You say "hi tree", and "hi" to every passing car outside. You've started adding "daht-tum" to your ramblings, so it sounds like you are testing out your name. Lots of "z's" too. You say "butter" for butterfly, "bah" for balloon, and "ow" when you fall, even when you aren't hurt. There is a line in a book where the cat knocks over a vase and when I flip to that page and say, "Catastrophe!" you chime in with "uh oh!". You are adding to the list of books that I can ask you to go get by telling you the title or a line from it. You toddle over and get the "cockatoo book" or "George" for the Curious George book, and "twinkle", for which you provide most of the "tars".

We've had some off nap schedule days and those are rough for all three of us. It isn't very pleasant when you have missed a nap. Neither of us are in a good mood and then Daddy comes home and he gets a happy child and a grumpy wife, because by that time you are usually over the grumpiness and are on your second wind. You still need two naps, is my point!

Car rides are so much more fun now! You love to look at everything and are fairly quiet doing your own thing most of the time. When we get to where we are going and I get out and go to your door you always clench your entire body in excitement of something new!

We went to our first gym class together and you did really well! Momma did well too, but that is because she knew two other Mommas in the class already. You stuck close to Ava for the first part and we sort of just watched everyone do their thing. We didn't do all the activities we were supposed to focus on, but I wanted to let you get accustomed to this room filled with brightly colored soft surfaces. You had trouble climbing up the ramp because you haven't figure out that you knees in pants are slippery, but your feet will give you traction. I'm sure next time you'll start figuring that out. You loved walking/crawling up the ramp shaped cushions. And you also loved being in the center of the parachute and having bubbles blown towards you. You must get that from me because Momma loved the parachute when she was a kid. We're signed up to go once a week, so I'm sure next time it will be more comfortable for you earlier in the session.