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.

Runners Up - Fingers

Here are the photos that didn't make the final draft of Naomi's "I Love You Through and Through" post for fingers. I really do love her fingers, telling by the number of times I photographed them.

And this is the one I did choose (with Dion's help).

Happy Birthday, Naomi!

Naomi had two nice birthday celebrations. The first was at the Gerrard Resource Centre on Friday the 18th.


I made the same cake as I did for Adam's birthday - Apple Spice. In fact, I had frozen the excess cream cheese frosting and saved myself quite a bit of time. The mini cupcakes turned out even better because I reduced the baking time to 18 minutes.

This was the only time Naomi so much as touched the cake. She just wasn't into it.

Adam, on the other hand helped himself to about four cupcakes while Naomi focused on her beloved cheese. I guess he figured it was payment for helping her blow out the candle.


The next day, on her actual birthday, we went to the CN Tower to celebrate. Here she is trying to do anything Adam is doing, as is her way.

[Dear future 10-yo Adam who has stumbled across the archives of this blog,
Do not complain that your sister's first birthday was oh-so-much-more-glamorous than yours. Trust me, lunch at the CN Tower was at least as much about you as it was about her. ]

[Dear Auntie Joan, do not look too closely. You will be horrified to learn that her dress was not ironed.]

Naomi scored the onion rings that came with Dion's steak but barely touched the nine-dollar serving of green beans we ordered for her.


still not so sure about this cake business.

Survey says....?

How could I have been so misguided? Cake is the bomb!

Happy Birthday, Munchkin!

Thanks for the laughs!

Naomi, I Love You Through And Through*

I love you through and through.

I love your top side.

I love your bottom side.


I love your inside


and outside.


I love your happy side,


your sad side,


your silly side,


your mad side.


I love your fingers


and toes,


your ears


and nose.


I love your hair


and eyes,


your giggles,


and cries.


I love you running


and walking,


silent


and talking.


I love you through and through,


yesterday,


today,


and tomorrow too.

*Poem by Bernadette Rossetti-Shustak


I'm getting this post done a week past my self-imposed deadline of Naomi's first birthday. Like a similar post I wrote for Adam, this contains pictures from Naomi's twelfth month (plus two from her 11th and one from the day she was born.) I'll have another post of great pics, from among the literally hundreds that I took this month, that didn't make the final draft.

She does it too.

Don't think that Adam is the only one with a fake cry around here.

Adamisms

Adam's speech is pretty clear and sophisticated for a 3-yo but he has a couple of expressions that I'm not correcting because they're just soooo cute.

Cheers. It means soft drink because the first time he had pop was also the first time he learned to clink glasses. He got confused. It's now the family word.

Let's have a little speak, meaning let's have a little chat.

Mommy, can you tension me please? This is the result of my training him to ask for attention directly rather than to act out or manipulate.

Can anyone think of other Adamisms I'm forgetting?

am screwed

There are a couple of things I need to mention about this photo.
1 - Naomi is the instigator of this incident tagged "mischief". She's the one who snatched my wallet from the diaper bag, which I had mindlessly left on the ground, and she's the one who removed cash and various cards. Adam only joined in later when he heard her gales of self-contented giggles.
2 - That is one of my favourite outfits on her. The pants are a hand-me-down from Adam's friend, Chloee, and the shirt is a hand-me-down from Adam. They were paired with hot-pink socks.
3 - Yes, those are cushions from the old couch. They do make good floor cushions.

Naomi is not yet a year old; however, she can already climb up baby slides, up and down stairs facing forwards, onto much of our furniture, into the bathtub, and to the top of the stroller if I forget to close the tray. This is my comeuppance to be sure.

No Words Required