Lavinia Grace: 12-15 Months

It’s been quite awhile since I did a baby update – so I thought I’d give you a peak into what Lavinia has been up to the past few months. I not really sure that baby is the correct word any more as Lavinia seems to have officially made the transition into toddlerhood. She is walking, exploring, playing on her own, interacting with those around her and knows what she wants! She has developed quite the personality and it is just such a joy to watch her grow, even if at the same time it is hard to let go of my baby!

STATS: At her appointment to get her flu shot last week Lavinia measured in at 30 inches tall and 18 lbs 11 oz. She is still on the small side but her height and weight are proportional and she is growing on her curve so Henri, I and her doctor are all really happy with her progress – she’s still our little munchkin which we love! 

EATING: It doesn’t even suffice to say that Lavinia has a healthy appetite… the girl can EAT! When she started daycare I’m pretty sure that everyday at pick-up her teacher mentioned that she ate a lot, haha. She generally eats the same meals that we do, and has a morning & afternoon snack in addition to breakfast, lunch & dinner. There are very few foods that she doesn’t like and we encourage her to try new things, even if they are a special treat – like cider donuts when we went apple picking. It’s becoming impossible to sneak a little snack around her because she WILL notice that you have food and ask for some of it. Just the other day she opened the pantry, grabbed a Larabar off the shelf, asked me to open it and then proceeded to eat the whole thing (besides the few bites that she gave to the dog…). 

She is still breastfeeding, although it is very limited. We’ll generally nurse once a day for a very short amount of time because “I’ve got much more interesting things to do mom!”… but if she asks to nurse (by signing “milk”) I’ll nurse her for 2-5 minutes until she gets bored. I’ve had two weekend work trips so far this cross country season and I definitely thought that these extended trips would be the end of our breastfeeding journey but alas, every time I come home she still wants to snuggle and nurse. There are four more trips before Christmas though so we’ll see if that continues to be the case.

SLEEP: Since the beginning Liv has been a champion sleeper. She is still sleeping 12 hours a night (7p-7a) which we are really thankful for! The only big change to her sleep patterns is that she has transitioned from 2 naps to one. It was a pretty natural transition and happened mostly at daycare but for those of you that are interested in how we transitioned her I’ll give you a general idea of what we did. As her morning nap (the one that happens at daycare) continued to get later and later but was still 2-2.5 hours I simply pushed back her second nap but would wake her up at least 1.5 hours before bedtime. So if she went down for her second nap at 4:45p I would wake her up at 5:30p. That way I wasn’t trying to stretch her from the end of her first nap, which was usually around 1:30p at the beginning, until 7p but bedtime wasn’t affected by the later second nap. When she could make it to 5:30p we stopped putting her down for the second nap and she was officially napping once from 12:30-3ish and had no problem staying up until her 7p bedtime. 

LIKES:

• Eating
• Sleeping
• Peek-a-boo
• Going on the swings & slides at the park
• Stroller runs with mommy
• Being silly – playing with mommy & daddy
• The Beach

DISLIKES:

Lavinia is a really easy going baby so there aren’t many things that she truly dislikes, the few things that do make the list are…

• Being told “no” or “all done”
• When she doesn’t want to be held but it’s not a safe area for her to be put down
• Teething
• Having her face/hands wiped down 
• Being in the sink or bathtub when the water is running – she’s randomly become afraid of the water spout 
• The Nose Frida – we hadn’t had much use for this before 12 months but it’s been used a LOT recently and she absolutely HATES it

NEW:

• Daycare – Liv started daycare in August and absolutely loves it. 
• WALKING! – it wasn’t until about a month ago that she really got the hang of walking all by herself. For the longest time she was happy to crawl around everywhere or just push around her zebra walker but every since she figured out walking she hasn’t looked back. 
• Being sick – since she started daycare and we really cut back on breastfeeding it seems like Liv has a cold every other week. I know that there is an adjustment period when kids start daycare so I was ready for the snotty noses and colds but they still aren’t the most fun things ever. Luckily, there’s only been two times that she had a fever and had to stay home and I’m pretty sure that was more related to cutting 3 molars at  
• 10 teeth – speaking of cutting teeth (^) Liv has cut 10 new teeth in the past 3 months. She got her top two teeth way back in February and those two were the lone teeth until this summer when they all came in with a vengeance. Now she has the 4 front teeth on the top and bottom and her first 4 molars! 
• Saying & Signing Words – we’ve been lazy about working on sign language with her but she is developing a little signing vocabulary alongside her verbal words. Right now she’ll sign “more”, “all done”, “dog”, “milk” and “book” and she can say “mama”, “dada”, “doggy”, “book” (sounds more like buh), “bobo” (Henri’s dad)
• Interacting with friends – this is one of my favorite new things! It is the cutest thing ever to watch her and a friend play together and is even more fun for my friends and I because we can actually have a conversation while the babies play!

THINGS I WANT TO REMEMBER

• When she crawls up into my lap for no reason at all and leans back into my chest
• The way she says “mmmmm” when she takes a bite of something yummy
• Her giggle when she is playing peek-a-boo with us by pulling her blanket over/off her head
• Our night time routine – the 15 minutes we spend getting her PJs on, reading a book (or 2 or 3), 
• The cheesy smile she makes when she’s getting her picture taken

We love our little, independent lady and are so thankful she is ours!