First steps

Hadley is WALKING!! In the last week or so, Hadley has started walking on her own and each day she is going further and walking faster as she gains confidence. It's so exciting!

Also, it looks like Hadley has a couple more teeth coming in. Her two front teeth on the top are coming in...they aren't fully grown in yet, though and I can't actually see them unless I lift her top lip. I had thought she was teething lately since I had noticed that she was putting EVERYTHING in her mouth and I guess I was right. She bit down on my finger, which previously wouldn't hurt much since she only had gums up top, but this time, it was QUITE painful since she now had chompers on the top as well as the bottom.

Milestone updates

Walking:
We have been waiting with bated breath for Hadley to start walking...but no such luck yet. We have managed to get her to take a few steps by herself but that's the most she'll do so far. It will probably be any day now (although I've been thinking that for the last month)!

Words:
She says "dada" to Rey consistently so we're pretty confident that she knows that's who he is. She will say "mama", too...but she usually only says it when she's upset and wants me to help her. She calls Simba "ba" but so far those are about the only words we can really make out. She babbles constantly so I'm thinking that once she does learn more words, she will be quite the talker.




Measurements:
Weight: 20lbs., 8oz. (38th percentile)
Height: 29.25 inches (43rd percentile)
Head Circumference: 18 inches (74th percentile)

Eating:
Now that Hadley is a year old she doesn't need formula anymore...Woohoo!! She drinks whole milk and thankfully, she didn't have any problems with the transition. She is also doing great with feeding herself...her favorites are bananas and strawberries. :-) She STILL only has 2 teeth and I am starting to wonder if the others will ever come in. I'm hoping she at least gets her top two in soon so she can use them to bite with. She still mostly drinks from her bottle, but she's getting better with a sippy cup and she's quite good at drinking from a straw.

Music:
As with most babies her age she loves music and she even dances sometimes! She kinda looks like she's doing the twist when she's dancing...so cute! Rey's mom taught her a couple of songs with little hand movements and she'll do those movements with her hand when she wants to hear them. Then we'll sing them to her and she'll clap!

1st Birthday party

I am FINALLY posting the pictures from Hadley's birthday party...sorry it has taken so long!

Hadley updates

My Hadleybear is 11 months old! Actually, she's 11-1/2 months old...I'm just a bit late with the photos. Apparently, I was wrong in my earlier post about her nap schedule. She wasn't really ready to move to only having 1 nap a day - she still needs 2. I guess she had just been having a rough few days and I thought her difficulty napping meant that she was ready for only 1. I must admit that I'm pretty happy about that! She's been so cranky the last couple weeks so it's really wonderful to have my sweet girl back.

She hasn't started walking on her own yet, but she's very fast when she walks holding onto the coffee table or the couches, etc. She's also getting much better at walking when we hold onto her hands and lead her around the room. When we first tried that with her, she didn't realize that she needed to take steps forward, but she definitely gets that now!

So far, Hadley is a bit on the short side...she still wears 9 months sized clothes (particularly onesies and dresses - anything that depends on the length of her torso for fit) and even those still have more room for her to grow. She can wear t-shirts and shorts in the 12 month size, though. She talks quite a lot but I still can't make out any words except for 'mama' and 'dada' and she uses those words indiscriminantly. I'm really looking forward to when she knows that I am "Mama" and Rey is "Dada".

We are working on her ability to feed herself but there's still quite a way to go. She's great with feeding herself small, dry things (cherrios, gerber puffs cereal, animal crackers, etc.) but she still has some trouble with slippery foods - at least half of it ends up on the floor. She's still only got two teeth so maybe it will help when she grows a few more. She also has a long way to go with the sippy cup. She hasn't figured out yet that you have to suck on it to get the water out...she puts the cup to her mouth and when nothing comes out, she gives up. We'll try a few different kinds with her and see if she does any better with those.

I am so funny....according to Hadley

And it was all going so well...

The last week and a half or so, Hadley has begun to go from two naps a day, down to one. Uuuugh. All last week she would take her morning nap just fine but when it came time for her afternoon nap, she either wouldn't take one at all or it would take her 45 minutes to get to sleep. She also started to take at least 30 minutes to go down at night which is not like her at all. After several days of this, I had to accept the fact that she was going to have to drop her morning nap. As much as I love Hadley to pieces, I do relish the time when she's down for her naps because that gives me time to do things I need to get done...so you can imagine that dropping a nap is not exactly something I'm thrilled about. I knew it was coming eventually....I just didn't think it would be so soon!

Hadley thinks she's so funny

Yep, she still likes spitting....(Sigh!)

Lately, she'll try to spit at me occasionally when I'm feeding her because she thinks she's goofing around. She'll spit and then give me this silly grin. As cute as she is, though, I still have try to be stern and not laugh because I don't want to encourage this! I definitely do not enjoy having baby food spit all over me!