Our Story: Month 12

Month 12: Baby!

Age: 1 year!

Weight: 20 lbs.

Major calendar events: Mothers' Day, birthday party, turned 1!

Milestones: Sleeping in her crib woo woo! Walking while pushing/holding on to something (but still not super into pulling up, crawling or walking on her own) and talking a lot! Says "balloons, bottle, bye bye, hi" and much more!

Sleep: Sleeping great! Sleeps 10-12 hours at night and is now napping once a day IN HER CRIB! This is huge people!! I miss our nap times together, but I must say having a couple of hours to myself to get stuff done (or whatever I want!) is INCREDIBLE! Liberating!

Likes: Army crawling, bathtime, giggling and laughing, walking all over the place while we hold both her hands

Dislikes: Foods that are green and/or vegetables

Best moment: So many good moments. So many laughs and hugs and kisses... but I just LOVED asking Heidi "where's mama" in a picture and then she pointed at me! That was great.

Worst moment: Holding my screaming baby down while a nurse inserted a catheter to get a urine sample. Here are the details: Heidi got very sick this month. At first, she had a low grade fever and you could tell she just felt crappy. All she wanted was just for me to hold her so she could rest her head. Since she had no other symptoms, I just chalked it up to teething (even though she has NEVER been bothered by teeth before). However, the following night I checked her temp and it was 105.3 (and this was with a rectal thermometer)!!! So off to the pediatric urgent care clinic we went. Turns out or angel had a terrible UTI that was pretty far along. Poor baby. Looking back, a UTI had crossed my mind at some point, and I tried to pay attention to see if she showed signs of discomfort while on her potty. She never seemed to cry out in pain or anything like that. However, we did have a few random moments of crying that must have been related! SEVERAL days before she got a fever, she randomly started screaming in the middle of church. This NEVER happens! Ryan had to take her out for a few minutes and then she was fine. We are now wondering if she was already experiencing pain at this point, even though it was DAYS before we took her to urgent care! (We took her to a nearby "Night Light Pediatric Urgent Care Clinic". Which if you live in the Houston area and need an after hours clinic for your little one - I HIGHLY recommend this!! I was very impressed and truly renewed my gratitude for those whose jobs require them to work off hours. I am so grateful!!)

Eating: Weaned!!! I breastfed Heidi for the last time the morning of her 1st birthday and it felt amazing to say - I DID IT!!!! By the time that we were just a couple of weeks out from her 1st birthday, we had already cut down the breastfeeding to once every couple of days and had started to replace nursing sessions with bottles of cow's milk. I will post more about our weaning experience later...but after some initial stress it went really well! She loves fruit (well, anything that is sweet really) but she does not like things that are green and/or vegetables.

Things I want to remember: Her chunky legs that are starting to disappear :(

Month 12: Mama

I am loving my life as Heidi's mom and I am so grateful for everything the Lord has blessed us with. I can't believe that I get to spend each and every day with my angel! I will say... one thing that threw me of (that I was not prepared for AT ALL) were the hormone crashes that came with weaning! I felt very moody and irritated and I had just never considered that even a year after birth... this was yet another thing that my body had to get used to and adjust to the change! It didn't last too long but it was definitely annoying. I miss breastfeeding for a lot of reasons but it is SO nice to have my body back and be 100% MY body again - a little person is not growing in it or relying on it to survive!

Here are some pictures from our 12th month!

Can you say crazy?

New diaper bag - if your baby can fit in it, then you know there is enough space!! (Btw it's a Skip Hop Duo Double and it's literally the best diaper bag EVER!! If I were to design my own diaper bag THIS is what it would look like!)