Monday, December 13, 2010

12.5 mos

The changes and advances that Jocelyn has made over the past few weeks has been incredible to watch. It seems that with each week, she is discovering more and gaining skills.

Movement: J is now creeping and walking while holding on with just one hand. Her confidence builds with each day, and even though she can stand on her own, she doesn't always believe she can. If she becomes distracted while standing up, she will actually do it longer then if she realizes what she is doing. Since J began to crawl, things have been different as well, especially for Burton and his food bowl! She is still not a huge fan of crawling, and would much rather be holding onto your finger and walking, she'll do it out of necessity. It's quite cute now though, so suddenly see her face peering at you from around the corner.

Skills: J has learned to clap and loves doing it along to music, as well as clapping for herself if she feels she accomplished something. Music is a favorite of hers, and it's especially cute to watch her clap "along" with the music.

Talking: Mama, Baba, Dada, Burt are still her basics, but really the child never stops talking. As Grandpa O'Haire put it, "she has two volumes, off and VERY loud". Whether it's talking to herself, her stuffed animals, Burton, or just feeling the need to complain, she likes to voice her opinions. I watched her walk around in her walker the other day for a full 10 minutes, complaining the entire time. It was quite amusing!

Sleep: Her naps have shortened a bit, and I'm not sure if it's b/c she's concentrating on walking, or if she's gearing up to drop one. They each last exactly 1 hour (not a min more or less... can we say an exact child?!). At night, she still does 12-12.5 hours though, which is quite lovely!

Food: J enjoys eating, and is quite experimental when it comes to trying different flavors and spice levels. There aren't to many things she won't at least try, although it often takes about 3-4 times of introducing a new item to get her to swallow it (it goes in, comes back out, she examines it, it goes back in, back out, look at it again, and then maybe, it goes back in for a final swallow).
J has also gotten into the habit of deep conditioning her hair while eating- aka, wiping her hands through her nice clean hair. Mommy especially loves this and is always excited for some extra green bean goo in the hair.

Playing: There are plenty of toys around for J to play with, but what keeps her entertained the longest is definitely her baskets of books. We can plop her down with the basket and she'll spend a good 20 minutes pulling out all the books, opening them, looking through them and "reading". Her favorite books right now are her Dog book (with movable parts as well a touchable hair) and "The Big Hungry Bear and the Red Ripe Strawberry". Each of these is read at least 3-4 times when either Chris or I sit down with her.

No comments:

Post a Comment