One Year Update (over a month late)

Allie
The Al E. Gator is a bird.  That is the best way to put it.  This little lady keeps us laughing and in amazement.  She is tough as nails. She will fall face first off a chair and bang her head on a door jamb, leaving a purple bruise the next day, and she will not make a peep, just rub the spot that hurts and keep on truckin'.  She is walking everywhere. Crawling is for babies, including Harper.  Allie's waddle is adorable and pretty fast.  She is babbling and repeating after me.  Her clear words are: "Wasat?" (What's that?-it's hilarious, cause she asks it all the time, very inquisitive), ball, dog, bye bye, night night, hi, uh-oh, mama, and dada.  She mimics "thank you" with "koong koong."  She is a great eater, though we are dealing with some food throwing.  Every morning, she downs her sippy cup of milk in 3 minutes flat and is sad when it is finished. She entertains herself and explores on her own for almost all the time we are at home.  She enjoys making music by beating on instruments or really any object.  She has just started to dance and gets her whole self into it.  Her smile will turn your bad day into a happy one. Her favorite book is Pat the Bunny, especially the part when she plays peekaboo with Paul. Our copy is in tatters.

Allie does not want to miss out on the day by sleeping! But her mother needs a break or two and her sister is still loving two naps a day, so (sadly) she probably spends an average of an hour a day (between two naps) in her crib playing/fussing before she finally falls asleep.  At Parents' Morning Out, she goes to sleep with no fuss in a baby swing; thus, I reassembled the baby swing and for the last week Allie has happily napped while swinging.  Baby books would tell you this sleep prop is bad.  This sleep prop gives me some much needed Kakhi time/clean the house time.  Allie is happy almost always, but try to take an object away from her and her happy world falls apart.  She enjoys seeing what new items have been added to the recycling bin.  Beer and wine bottles are the jackpot and she will carry them all over the house. Again, do not try to take them away.  Maybe I shouldn't announce this, but she has a very weird affinity for eating fuzz off the carpet and her stuffed animals.  Gross, I know.  She is a bird.

Her stats at her one month visit:
Height: 29.5 inches (59th percentile)
Weight: 20 pounds 12 ounces (41st percentile)

My little lamb.

First trip to the Varsity!

Harper

Harpernator is a delicious little chunk of huggableness.  Her laugh should be recorded for Gerber commercials.  She covers her eyes and plays peekaboo. She's very ticklish.  She loves to playfully grab Allie by the collar and drag her down.  Allie doesn't mind, but doesn't think it's funny either.  Lately, she had become even more attached to her paci than before.  It is a very nice tool in the toolkit for fussy moments. She exuberantly performs her animal noise when she is comfortable with everyone in the room.  A loud Bah! is her favorite, but also does bear, elephant, dog, and snake noises.  Yesterday, she heard a dog in the hall and started going crazy because she wanted to see it.  We went out in the hall and it was actually inside our neighbors apartment, so she was very frustrated.  Dogs are her favorite animal.  The geese in Piedmont Park are also highly admired.

Harper is almost ready to walk.  She is very cautious though -- Allie learned through many failed attempts and falls, but Harper does not want to try unless she has something safe to hold on to.  She has started standing in place on her own, and will happily walk all over the place if you give her a finger for balance.  She practices walking by pushing her shopping cart, and she gets very sad when she reaches the end of the room and hits a wall.  She looks at you and whines until you turn it around for her.  But recently she seems to be figuring out how to turn it on her own, so maybe she's moving past that.

She hasn't been a great eater recently, and she is starting to be noticeably skinnier than Allie.  I'm assuming this is just their different growth spurts (they are two very different people!).  Harper is also more of a food-thrower than Allie, and she likes to look you in the eyes while she picks food off of her tray and drops it over the side.  She is showing her defiant little personality even at 1 year. 

What Harper is good at is sleep.  She is a champ -- put her in her crib and she's out in two minutes.  Sometimes she tells us she wants her crib by pointing at her blanket or leaning into the crib while we are holding her.

Her bye-byes are so sweet.  Both she and Allie say bye-bye about twenty times when we leave somewhere or someone leaves us.  Her other words are ball, hi, mama, uh-oh, dada, and oosh for shoe. 

Her stats at her one year pediatrician visit:
Height: 29.25 inches (50th %ile)
Weight: 19 pounds 4oz (18th %ile)

Harper Hula Hooping

Harper in her cowboy boots that CeCe brought her from Texas.

The best moment of my day with them is when they start playing peekaboo with each other.   They shriek with joy as they pop from behind furniture and scare each other.  They also love playing tug of war with a blanket and patting each other on the back and sometimes even hugging.  It is such a joy when they interact.