Growing Up Lanese: Lilly Belle: 13 Months

Now that Miss Lilly Belle is 13 months, I've decided to do her monthly posts a bit differently. I am just going to write about new things she has learned & things she experienced. Now that she is no longer a "baby" but instead a "toddler", some of the things we used to write about don't change as quickly as they used to.

Lilly Belle - 13 Months Old

Social Butterfly

Lilly Belle is definitely our little social butterfly. She continues to wave at everyone-everywhere we go. She now loves to blow kisses and make kissy faces as random people (ex. grocery store or my dr. appt). I started my job working in the kids club at Sammamish Club & she has loved that so much. It's been like "school" for her. She plays with all the kids and explores so many new toys each time we go. She loves the other teachers there and has just had a blast. I'm so glad I have this job and that it is something for both of us.

Sweet Summertime

I can't believe our summer is now over :( I had such a hard time the last 2 weeks knowing that now fall is beginning (which is my favorite), but I have to start working more again. I've basically had the whole summer off and found that I love nothing more than being with Lilly Belle all day. We didn't get to accomplish all of the things on our bucket list, but boy did we have fun together! We took a few trips to the zoo, played with friends, went on walks, went swimming, played outside & visited Daddy at work a couple of times. It was short and sweet.

More, More, More!

Lilly loves to eat. For a while we were having a really hard time getting her to eat vegetables other than in her pouches or hidden in smoothies, but slowly she is getting better about it. She loves snack time the best because she likes to have freedom to play while she eats. Sitting in her high chair for a meal is just not enough (hmmm...sounds terrifyingly familiar). She has now had everything that we couldn't eat during the first year - strawberries, honey, whole milk & peanut butter. She loves strawberries and honey, but she isn't too thrilled with peanut butter just yet. She has loved when I make her smoothies lately - I usually do milk, yogurt, banana, blueberries & spinach. It is my way of making sure she is for sure getting iron everyday as at her 12 month appointment, her iron was a bit low. She will drink an entire cup of smoothie :) She still loves string cheese, bananas (which she calls Na-nanas), all fruit really, cheddar bunnies, pouches, yogurt her oatmeal cereal in the morning & now honey on waffles or toast. She still isn't doing so great in the milk drinking department, but we're working on it.

Nursing & Sleeping

Lilly Belle still nurses before all of her naps, before she goes to bed, when she wakes up in the morning and sometimes she will wake up around 4:00/4:30am to nurse. I just had my yearly check-up and discovered (well, I wasn't surprised), that I don't really have much milk - she is just nursing for comfort really. I'm okay with that. I know she is still getting something because I still leak every now and then, but I could definitely stop (nutrition-wise) and she would be the same. We are not ready to stop yet; either of us. Every now and then I will try to put her down for nap without nursing her and she freaks out and I don't like it either, so for now we will continue nursing around 4-5 times/day.

Lilly Belle now (usually) takes a longer morning nap and a longer afternoon nap. Sometimes we will still have days with 3 short naps, but she is definitely starting to transition into 2 naps. We have found that the longest she can stay up at a time without freaking out when it is time to go down, is 4 hours.

She still goes to bed every night at 7pm and usually wakes up for the day between 6:15 and 7am. She then goes down for her morning nap about an hour after she wakes up. That nap lasts anywhere from 1-2 hours. Then she takes another nap after or sometimes before lunchtime.

Little Miss Chatterbox

I need to get her that book. Girlfriend is talking up a storm! She is constantly talking. If she isn't talking, it is because she is eating or reading her books. She can say so many words now! It's amazing to me how much she is comprehending, too! We filmed her during bath time the other night and she said, "Princess", "Bath Time", "Pluto" and a few more just clear as could be. Matt and I kept looking at each other in awe. She likes to have conversations with us - and we love it even more! It's adorable. She can almost copy every one & two syllable word we say. Her favorite phrase to say right now is, "What is that?" (Wha-is-da) So much fun!
Other commonly used new words/phrases: Uh Oh, No no no no no, Thank You, Don't want to (in Lilly language)

On The Move

Lilly Belle is not walking just yet, but did take her first few steps this month. She could totally do it. She's so ready. She can walk with Matt and I holding each of our hands and go just as fast as we do. She can run with us if we hold her hands and walk backwards too...she just won't let go! I think she needs to know that she is going to be able to do it well before she will let go. That frightens me a bit because I don't want her to be afraid to fail. We keep saying that she is going to walk anyway now...we'll see...

And now for some fun pictures from Lilly Belle's 13th month :)

(and in no kind of order because 'ain't nobody got time for that'...and also none from my phone because oh boy...there are just too many right now. another day.)

We went to lunch at Daddy's work and had a minute to shoot some hoops.