Andi Lynn is One Year Old!!!

March 17th, 2011 Andi Lynn turned ONE!!!

We went to the doctor yesterday for Andi’s one year well visit. We are so blessed and thankful to have a perfect, healthy, and smart baby girl! Andi, you had to get 3 shots: MMR, Varicella, and Hepatitis A. You were not happy about this one bit (and neither was I). We gave you some infant Advil before bed and you slept well. In fact you slept really well. Slept through the night, slept through Daddy putting you in the car seat the next morning, and even slept while I dropped you off at Nana’s house! I guess those shots, the doctor’s visit, and going back to school after having a week off for spring break, wore you out. Nana said that you woke up happy! I am so glad because in the past, the shots have made you run fever and moan in pain.

*Andi weighs 20 lbs 1.5 oz. {40th percentile} and is 29.5 inches long {50th percentile}

*Andi Lynn, you are so fun. Each day brings something new, and I love every moment. You make all of us smile constantly. You are making new discoveries and are very curious to know what everything is. You will point to everything and want us to tell you the name of it. Sometimes you will point and say “that?” If we ask you later, “where is the…” you will eagerly search and point to it. What a smart girl you are!

*You sleep from about 8:00 PM to about 7:00 am. You are an excellent sleeper! Most of the time, you still want to be rocked to sleep. Precious! Otherwise, when you are tired enough, we will put you in your crib and you will hum yourself to sleep. You started sleeping with a stuffed animal or doll last week. Not every night, but some nights we will give you one to cuddle. You are loving your stuffed animals. You squeeze them so tight and give them hugs and kisses. It is the cutest thing ever! When you wake up in the morning you do not cry. You will sit in your crib for a few minutes and talk to yourself (or your stuffed animal or pacifier). Yes, you still prefer to sleep with the pacifier (and we will put an extra one or two in the crib in case you loose one or decide to throw one overboard). You will then stand up and take your pacifier out of your mouth and bang it on the top of the crib as if to say, “Wake up! Come get me!”

*You usually only take two naps a day. These naps are not always consistent. May not be at the same times each day. You have pushed your naps to be later in the day than they used to be. You will nap at about 10:00 am and again at 3:00 pm.

*We introduced whole cow’s milk for the first time yesterday. You are not sure what to think about this. You will take a sip from your cup and then you will spit some of it back out. You would prefer only water from your sippy cup. You still want a bottle before bed, which I am happy to give you. You sleep well with a full and happy belly. You have been drinking formula bottles for a couple months now. You weaned yourself off of Momma. I am thankful that this transition was easy and your choice. I was not producing much milk anymore anyways. That is probably why you preferred the bottle. I am hoping that we can soon get you to enjoy cow’s milk from your sippy cup.

*You wear mostly 12 month clothes but can still fit into some of your 9 month clothes. Believe it or not, your dad put you in some 3 month pants last Sunday and just thought they were cropped/capri pants. When I looked at the tag that said 0-3 months, all I could do was laugh.

*Your smile and excitement makes everyone else smile and laugh too. When you get tickled or excited you scrunch up your nose when you smile and if you really get excited about something you scrunch your nose and start breathing heavily through your nose. So funny!

*You are constantly talking. All the time! A lot of the time you are speaking your own language, but you are certain we understand what you are saying. You are able to say these words:

Mama, Dada, Diaper, Light, Dog, Bubbles, Balloon, Ball, A-N-D-I, Andi. Fish, Nana, Hot, Book

*You will wave hello (and say hi) to everyone. You have not met a stranger. You love going to the store and smiling and waving at everyone who passes by.

*You will wave and sometimes say “bye-bye” when I leave to go to work. And you always do it with a smile on your face. Thank you, because I think it would be impossible to leave you if you were upset or crying. You smile and big wave good-bye lets me know you are happy and going to be ok.

*Your new word is “uh-oh.” It is so cute. When you drop something you quickly say “uh-oh” and look or point to make sure we see that something fell (or, in most cases, you dropped it).

Your other new phrase is “this is…” You do not fill in the blank, but you will hold something up and say “this is….” as to ask what the object is that you are holding up. So inquisitive!

*When you eat something you like (or if you just want to put on a show) you will say yum, yum, yum with a smile of course.

*There are a lot of words that you know the meaning of. If we say a certain word or phrase you will follow those simple directions or point to what it is we are speaking of. You know: Mama, Dada, Nana, Papa, Gram, Grandavs, Pearl, all of your stuffed animals, car, stroller, bottle, water, bath, turtle, fish, vitamin, puffs, spoon, oatmeal, your name: A-N-D-I- Andi, water, pictures of Andi, elephant, lion, cat, dog, bubbles, balloon, light, television, book, diaper, cup, phone, computer, tree, home, mailbox.

*You are a good eater. Not picky, but you know what you like. You will only eat what you want, when you want it. You will point and grunt to get what you want. If I am feeding you something and you are ready for a drink of water, you will point to the water cup and refuse to take another bite until you get a drink. You love, absolutely love cheese puffs. I think you would eat these all the time if I let you. If you see your snack cup, you get excited and start laughing and pointing at it (even if it is empty or filled with Cheerios instead). You eat oatmeal every morning and love it. And you like to eat a banana in the morning now too. Must be the whole banana with the peeling hanging off, otherwise you don’t want it. You don’t want me to just feed you chunks of banana. You want to bite it yourself. I don’t know if you could start your day without your morning oatmeal. You still eat pureed foods (stage 2). You do not like the stage 3 foods that are pureed with chucks. I think it is a texture thing. You always want what I am eating (so I have to make sure I am eating a little healthier these days (who am I kidding!?)). Your favorite is pizza. You will take a bite of a slice of pizza and smile as you eat it. You are proud of yourself. You will feed yourself finger foods. You have now decided that you will eat meat sticks. This is a good thing. For a while there, I thought you might be a vegetarian, refusing to eat any meat. You try to take bites of my sandwiches too if I let you. I am still a little surprised, (shocked!) that you don’t care for sweets.

*You have two bottom teeth. And it is precious when you smile big to show off those pearly whites. You like it when we brush your teeth at night and you grab hold of the toothbrush and want to do it yourself.

*You enjoy bath time. When I ask if you want a bath, you get very excited and smile. Yesterday I found you in the bathroom looking into the bathtub saying what I thought was “bath.” You must have been trying to tell me something. You were ready for a bath. You don’t get a bath every night, but you sure did want one last night! You love to splash in the tub and when I say, “Splash! Splash!” you pat the water and make the water splash. You think this is so fun.

*You have started dancing to music. You first started doing this about a month ago. It is precious. When we were watching American Idol, you stopped what you were doing, pulled up onto the coffee table and just started dancing. Your favorite song to dance to is Wheels on the Bus. You have a toy, a pink school bus, that plays this song and every time you hear it, you stop what you are doing and start dancing. You will often times raise one hand over your head and wave it around as you bob up and down. You do not have to be standing. You will sometimes get on your knees and bob up and down.

*You love for us to crawl & chase you around the house. Many times a day you will start crawling away, stop, turn & look at us, smile, & wait for us to come chase after you. We will say, “I’m gonna get you.” And you will start laughing and crawl away quickly, always glancing back to see if we are getting close. You laugh hysterically when we catch you and tickle or kiss you. You can crawl really fast & always have a huge smile on your face.

*You love books! Love books! You will point to your books and get very excited and say “ook, ook.” You will pull books off of your shelf and begin looking at the pages and reading the book. If you find one that you want me to read to you, you will hand it to me and say, “ook.” You really like to turn the pages. When I have finished reading a page, I will say, “Turn the page,” and you will do so. You know exactly what I am asking you to do. Almost always when you see a picture of a dog or cat in your book, you will lean down and kiss it. Precious!

*You now love your stuffed animals and baby dolls. You smile and point and delightfully laugh when you see one. You will ask me to get it for you (or you will crawl over and get it yourself). When you get it in your arms you squeeze it tightly, give it a hug, and a kiss if we ask you to kiss it. You know the names of most of your dolls and stuffed animals. If I ask “where is…” you will point and if I say, “go get…” you will crawl over to it, hug it and give it a pat-pat-pat. You know the name of Baby, Dolly, Yellow Dog, Sock Monkey, Brown Teddy Bear, Fluffy Dog, Pink Bunny, Rabbit, and Elmo. You are loving Elmo right now.

* You enjoy playing with your toys, especially your push toys. You have also liked to not only pull things out of the toy basket and other containers, but really enjoy putting things back in. You will put your letter blocks back in the train, will put the Cheerios back in the bowl, and shapes, back in the jar they go in. I am really liking that you will now put things back and like doing it. You are so proud of yourself when you get to put something back where it came from.

*You enjoy people watching. You are content if we are out walking in the stroller or in the shopping cart or anywhere where there are people and things to look at. You especially enjoy being outside. You have started to like going in the back yard and playing with Pearl. You will crawl out there or we will take one of your push toys outside for you to use to help walk. If not outside, you will look out the window, longing to be outside. When you eat at the table, you will often point to the window, as if to ask me to open the blinds. You are also loving animals right now so we took you to the zoo for your birthday. You loved the elephants, giraffes, and lions.

*Kisses. You love to give kisses. You will give, Mommy especially, wet, slobbery kisses. And you love it when Pearl gives you kisses. You will lean in and open your mouth to kiss her, but she usually kisses (licks) you first. You love to give yourself kisses too when looking into the mirror. You are a pretty girl and you know it.

*Right now we have lots of pictures of you hanging up in the house from your birthday party. You get very excited when you see yourself in the pictures. You will point to them and want me to carry you over to take a closer look. If I ask where are “pictures of Andi,” you smile and point to them.

* You LOVE Pearl. Whenever we ask “Where is Pearl?” you will look down at the floor and smile while you search for her and then laugh when you find her. You try to crawl to chase her around the house. You enjoy getting into Pearl’s toy basket (which I think stresses Pearl out, but she is a good sport about it. She lets you play with everything except her bone which she quickly snatches and goes to hide it). You play tug-of-war with Pearl and laugh nonstop while wrestling with her. You love to go outside with Pearl. If we open the back door to let Pearl out and you don’t get to go outside too, you let us know that you want out. You will look out the window on the door and bang on it. A month ago you wanted nothing to do with grass. Now it doesn’t faze you to crawl and walk around on the grass or back porch.

*It melts my heart when you see me from across the room and come quickly crawling over to get me. You then pull up on my legs until you are standing and you reach one arm up so I will pick you up and hold you. I am glad to hold my precious girl. When you see your Daddy, you smile from ear-to-ear. He will say “WooDee” and you know who will be there smiling back at you.

*You are a fast crawler but would now rather be walking. Not on your won yet, but you will grab hold of one or both of our hands and walk, almost run around the house or yard. If we stop, you get mad and let us know that you want to walk some more. It won’t be long until you are going on your own. You did take your first non assisted steps yesterday. You walked to Daddy and were so proud of yourself.

*You are doing so many fun things! You are such a happy and content little girl. An easy-going and laid-back baby. I’m thankful for that. Everyone constantly tells us how you are such a good baby. So easy-going and smart. You teacher, Ms. Leigh Ann, told me yesterday that you are the smartest one in the class. And your doctor, Dr. Burton, was so impressed with you that he said, “Are you sure she isn’t 15 months or older. She is so advanced!”

***I LOVE YOU! We love you more than you can ever imagine, more than words can express. It is almost impossible to imagine loving you anymore, but I know that as the days go by, I will love you more and more each day. We look forward to continually watching you grow and learn. I cannot imagine my life without you. You have brought immeasurable joy and happiness to many lives. We love you, Andi Lynn!