Twelve Months

At twelve months, Claire loves her books.  She loves to pull them out of her basket, turn them the correct way, and "read" though them.  She knows where all of the cats and ducks are in her books and points them out.  She goes through them very quickly.  She has started bringing books over to me so that I will read them to her.  Her favorite to read by herself is Pat the Bunny.  Except for smelling the flowers, she can feel or do all of the different things in the book.  At the end, the characters wave "Bye-bye" and Claire always waves and says "Bye-bye" to the book.  Her favorite book to have us read to her is Feathers for Lunch, a story about a cat who gets out and tried to catch a bird, but all he catches are feathers for lunch.  She wants to skip over the pages that don't have the cat's picture so she can point him out on a different page.  She also enjoys the books with flaps to pull back.

Claire likes playing in the pantry while I'm working in the kitchen.  I've had to do a bit of rearranging, but she likes to pull out the spices and shake them.  She gets excited when she finds the sesame seeds because they sound like her egg shakers.  She has three different plastic coffee containers that serve as her drum set.  She also has some magnets on the refrigerator that she likes to pull down.  Despite her kitchen entertainment, she is often pulling on my pants, pointing, and saying "bup bup" to be picked up.

Claire has had a few rough weeks with waking up during the night.  We thought she may have been teething, but we still don't have any new teeth, so we're not sure what was going on.  She's been better the past few nights.  I think we're officially down to one nap a day, usually falling somewhere in the 11-1 range.

Claire took her first steps the night before her birthday.  Matt and I were playing with her in our bedroom and she took three steps followed by five a few minutes later.  She's done it several times since then.  I think her longest stretch was about twelve steps with the motivation of getting to her friend baby Hannah!  Claire tends to take 2-3 steps with her left foot for every one with her right, so she moves in circles a bit!

She has learned where her elbow is, where her eyes are, and how to say boat ("buuuh").  She can point out several new things including dogs, flowers, and birds.  She signs "more," "please," "thank you," and "up."  She loves to say "Bye-bye" and says it anytime I hang up the phone, we change rooms in the house, a person walks by (no matter how far away), or a car goes by. 

Her favorite foods include banana, black beans, and yogurt.  We have stared weaning, but she doesn't seem to like whole milk very much.  She still enjoys being out and around other people.  She's getting a bit of a temper when she can't have something she wants.  She throws her head back and groans.  We're working with her to not throw her food and/or cup on the floor when she is finished with them.  We'll get some updated measurements at her annual exam next week, but she is starting to wear 18 month sized clothes and will move to size 4 diapers after we finish the current box.