Happy New Year to all! Only a few more hours until I have to go back to work after a luxurious 10 days off. It’ll be an adjustment for all of us–we’ve all been sleeping in late, taking naps, staying up late to play video games, and eating way too much sugar. Graem hasn’t had a bottle in forever, and has been nursing like a vampire. She’ll be in for a little bit of bottle shock tomorrow, and I’m sure I’ll be leaking before I even get to work.
Shawna and Graem have been sick with an upper respiratory bug–somehow I managed to avoid it. Graem has been faring better than Shawna, who has laryngitis and has completely lost her voice. We’ve all been trying to rest up, drink lots of tea, and get better. I made chicken soup for the two of them as well.
This is probably totally unhealthy, but part of me is sad watching Graem get bigger and older. I love that she is learning and absorbing things exponentially each day, but when I glance at her quickly and see her out of the corner of my eye, I see a little girl, and not a baby. It seems like it was just a few weeks ago when she was still a nursing/pooping machine. The whole scale of time seems to grow with her: when she was minutes old, each second seemed to be an eternity. When she was days old, every hour had such newness with each change and new expression on her face. Now that she’s a year old, days and weeks go by and I don’t notice until we go to our next pediatrician visit and she’s gained several pounds. I just want to hold on to each moment forever.
Speaking of well visits, Graem had her one-year visit last Thursday. She is 31 inches tall (95th percentile), and weighed 21 lbs. 14 oz. (70th percentile). One of our concerns is that we had tried to stop feeding her baby food and feeding her more table food, but that she wasn’t as interested in it because of the different textures. In particular, she doesn’t like meat–chicken or beef. She seems to do okay with fish, and smooth-textured and pureed veggies. She loves alu palik and other curries and rice (mild). I was worried that she wasn’t eating enough, and it seems that she’s been nursing a lot to compensate. We’ve decided to put her back on baby food (Stage 3, chunky) and keep trying grownup food.
The pediatrician seemed happy that Graem is hitting all her milestones: she has a few words in her vocabulary, she is using sign language, she’s walking, pointing at things, can follow a few commands (”Get a book to read,” “Get Fuzzy Fuzzy Fuzzy,” “Where’s the cat?”), etc. We are teaching her parts of the body, how to kiss, “dog” (she still calls Bailey “cat”–that may never change!)
Graem’s birthday party was a success. Of course I was a wreck in the hours before–Shawna wasn’t feeling well, so Uncle Bobby and Aunt Cate and I were trying to pick up the slack. I was worried that there wouldn’t be enough room in the house for everyone, that there would be awkward moments, wrong plates/napkins/cups/food items, etc. Thank god Dobbs showed up and there was enough entertainment just watching the two kids get to know each other! We sang happy birthday and Graem tried to blow out her candle, and then we all smeared cake on ourselves. Afterwards, the two kids played for a little while in Grammy’s room, and then we opened presents. I can’t believe we have to do it all again next year….
Well, off to bed for me…and a few more hours of snuggling with Grammy. Be sure to check out the latest photos under Baby Graem - December.
