Fun at One

Life with a one year old has been quite the exciting time! Ellie is just full of new things lately...new words, expressions, and confidence. Her word list consists of Hi, Bye, Buh-bye, Mama, Daddy, 'What's that?' (combined with a finger point), and Uh-oh. Ellie's also gotten really good at imitating facial expressions. She sticks out her tongue when you do (or even when you ask her to), and her new favorite one is the 'fish-lips' kiss which she likes to do with Mama. Her confidence is coming with her walking; which is more like running at times. As a result, she has become somewhat of a walking accident. Bumps and bruises are pretty typical now. No really serious injuries yet, but I'm sure our time is coming. It's been really nice here the last few days, and yesterday we were walking around outside. This was really the first time Ellie has walked on her own outside. The little slope to our driveway made her just want to run, but that was certain cause for disaster so Mom and Dad had to stay very close!

Ellie's a great eater. She eats almost anything, but her favorites seem to be bananas (#1 for sure), cottage cheese, string cheese, yogurt, and sweet potatoes. She also likes just about anything with noodles in it. We often have to keep her from shoving too much food in her mouth - her cheeks tend to look like a little chipmunk. We've completely gone away from daytime bottles, just sippy cups with milk or water now. She hasn't taken to milk much yet, but can't get enough water. Bedtime baba is going to be a little harder to give up. To be honest, Mom and Dad just haven't tried too hard with this yet...one thing at a time...

I've noticed Ellie seems to be thinning out a little. Don't get me wrong, she still has a little buddha belly, but the change has been obvious in how her pants fit. I guess she's officially in that active 'toddler' stage when the baby fat starts to disappear. I remember when our nephew Aiden started walking...it was like one day he was a 'baby' and the next time we saw him he was a little boy. It's crazy how that happens. Ellie had her 1 year wellness visit with the Dr. last week, and her stats confirmed my observation. She was 30 3/4 in. tall (90th percentile), and 24 lb. (80th percentile). Up until this point she's always been 90-95% in the weight category. Her head was also 47 cm, which is just perfect for a growing brain!

Ellie has all kinds of favorite toys. We are kind of in toy overload right now, with Christmas and then her birthday just 1 month later - our living room is out of control. She likes to dance to anything that makes music, play with her phones (she has a few and knows exactly how to use them), and push the buttons on the remote (her battery-less one and the 'real' one when she can sneak it past Dad). Ellie also LOVES the computer...we cannot be on it without her on our lap (thankfully she's napping now or else this would take me twice as long to write!) She pretty much likes all of her toys, and when she's bored with them she's in the kitchen cupboards pulling out whatever she can. Ellie loves to read and will bring you book after book if you keep reading them to her.

I can say that 1 has been a fun age so far. I've had friends tell me that 1-2 is easier than 0-1 (or 2-3) so we'll see. So far, the first week has been pretty good!