The Pope Kiddos: April 2009

Another month has gone by already. One month until she turns 1! I can hardly believe it's been almost a year since she was born. But I also can't remember what our lives were like before her. How did we spend our time?

Lily is a crack up these days. She's hilarious and sometimes on purpose. She likes to have our attention all of the time. She'll often lean really far to one side to get into our field of view. When she wants to give us something (usually a book, but sometimes toys), she'll grab our hand, turn it over and put the item in it. Usually this is because she wants us to read a book for her. She definitely has favorite books. She's always giving us the Eric Carle books (Brown Bear and Polar Bear) just like she was doing last month. But now, she's also giving us two new books Hand, Hand, Fingers, Thumb and also Ten Apples up on Top. Just like with the Carle books, these also have a sing-song rhythm. Sometimes she just watches intently while we're reading, sometimes she laughs and sometimes she dances.

She's so close to walking. She's very good at standing on her own. She can push herself up onto her feet without pulling up on anything. On her hands and feet she pushes her butt up into the air and then pushes off her hands to standing. She's loves practicing this on our bed. Every morning when she wakes up she comes into bed with us to nurse and cuddle for a few minutes. She loves standing up, clapping her hands and then falling back on her butt. She also likes slamming her whole body back into the bed. Unfortunately she doesn't look where she's going and a couple of weeks ago, she slammed the back of her head right into the bridge of my nose and make me see stars. It didn't hurt her at all but it sure hurt me. I thought I was going to get a black eye. Now we're a little more careful about watching where she's going, lest we want broken noses and black eyes.

She's been sleeping really well at night. She goes down to sleep at night with absolutely no problems whatsoever. We turn off the lights, turn on the nighttime music, nurse in bed, then she goes in her crib with her blanket, pacifier and puppy and goes right to sleep on her own. She never makes a peep. She just lays down and goes right to sleep. Occasionally she'll wake up a couple of times during the night very briefly and goes back to sleep without needing anything from us. Every once in a while she'll get up earlier than she's supposed to (like at 5 AM) and want to nurse and then go back to sleep with us. Since this is pretty occasional I let her. Typically, she'll get up for the day between 6-6:30 AM.

Napping isn't so great. She doesn't really like to take naps. Morning naps are hit or miss. She always takes at least 1 nap each day though. I don't worry about it too much. She's pretty agreeable even if she doesn't want to take her 2 naps.

Milestones
*Wearing 12-18 months or 18-24 month clothing. Sometimes the pants are still too long though.
*Wearing a size 4 diaper.
*Wearing a size 5 shoe.
*Loves music and dancing.
*Loves to read and be read to.
*Loves to eat.
*Loves to eat whatever mommy and daddy have.
*Tries to put on her own clothes. Sets her socks and shoes on her feet. Tries to put bows in her hair.
*Is the center of attention of her daycare buddies. She's the ringleader.
*Very opinionated. Shouts if you do something she doesn't like. But she's easy to distract and will forget that something made her mad.
*Loves to dance. Loves music.
*Likes to shake her head back and forth (like to say 'no') and loves it if you do it back to her then she'll do it again. She loves this game.
*Can stand on her own.
*Can go from squatting to standing and back again without holding onto anything.