12 months check-up and check-in for Naomi

Naomi had her 12-month check up visit earlier in the month and got a clean bill of health. And these are the stats: 19.5 lb (under 20th percentile) and 30.5 inches ( over 90th percentile)*. Uhm "delicate" as someone very delicately put it.

Naomi is a lovely little person. She's very affectionate, self-sufficient, active, adaptable, and good-natured, which makes her strong will even lovelier. I should mention that we do call her the squirmiest baby in the world. Dion even calls her the squirmiest baby ever, but come now, that's got to be an exaggeration.

Naomi's babyhood is almost gone and it's almost never been. She's just not into being a baby. She never took a pacifier or a bottle, sucked her thumb, had a blankie or a lovey. Well she kinda has a few favourite soft toys in her crib (a bear with a bunny-ears hoodie, a turtle, and a small fabric doll we call the Jester) but they're not really comfort objects. Luckily, she rarely needs any comforting or soothing.

But she tenaciously hangs on the worst of all babyhood traits: NOT SLEEPING THROUGH THE NIGHT. Seriously? 13 months old now. Cut me a break. I don't know if she has ever slept more than 5 hours straight. And those 5 hours, when then come, are never 1am to 6am or even 3am to 8am. 6:30pm to 11:30pm, maybe. On the upside, she'll tolerate naptime or bedtime shifts and she goes to sleep very easily. She usually goes into her crib quite happily and puts herself to sleep - no need for rocking, or stroking, or singing.

Here's a verbal snapshot of Naomi at around 1-year old. (Visual snapshots will have to wait.)

Likes
- dancing
- kids' songs, especially If You're Happy and You Know It and Five Little Monkeys
- kids' music videos on Youtube
- cheese, grapes, noodles, pears, water, milk, legumes
- ride-on toys and playground features
- splash pads
- bubbles!
- climbing
- new! books. Moo, Baa, La La La is a favourite
- soft toys
- pushing buttons
- keys
- shoes
- bathtime
- doing things BY HERSELF JUST THE WAY EVERYONE ELSE IS DOING IT, TYVM, especially self-feeding
- whatever Adam is doing

Dislikes
- being dressed and diapered, having her nails trimmed. NB: all of these requiring staying pretty still.
- pooing
- sunglasses and hats

Newish and Developing Skills
- using a fork
- drinking milk from a cup (half a teaspoon at a time) or a straw
- matching clothes and shoes to people and their parts
- giving kisses
- waving at socially appropriate moments
- stamping feet, pouting, and giving dirty looks
- a few words (in descending order of clarity): Up, Mum/Mumma, Dada/Daddy, Ada(m), Baa (the sheep sound), Bottle (for her water bottle), Book, Bear, Turtle, Grape, Music, and I think "Did it!"
- pushing a train around the track, sometimes without destroying said track which has been carefully constructed by Adam

*It took me a while to figure out why this wasn't displaying properly. I had used less and greater than symbols but then blogger took them for a non-sense html tag and deleted everything between.