ONE

Cailin turned one on Friday! This also means, Mommy and Daddy have survived our first year of parenthood. Go us!

This year has been the best year ever. So many happy moments, some frustrating ones, but all and all it has been great! I don't usually say this, but we are so truley blessed to have such a wonderful, happy, beautiful, healthy baby girl. It makes me so happy to see her grow and learn, and so sad at the same time that she's getting so big so fast.

We had two (yes two!) birthday parties! One was just a small get together with the inlaws, since they weren't going to be able to make it to her party, and then we had the big party the next day. More on that later. :)

What Cailin is up to this month:

• Still amazes me with words and signs.
  Says:
  New words - Ball, Kitty, Tree (Christmas tree).
  Perfecting old words - Mom, Dad, Hi, Baby, Dog.
  
  Signs:
  New Signs: Baby (my favorite. It's sooo cute!), I love you, Kitty, Apple.
  Old Signs - Milk, More, Eat, Banana, All Done, Please, Dog.
  
• She points at EVERYTHING wanting an explaination. She's so curious about the world around her.
  
• Still not interested in walking. I thought she was going to be walking by Christmas there for a minute. On Thankgiving weekend she was taking an interest in it. Even taking a step towards me, and standing unassisted. She'll stand unassisted, until she realizes she is and then she'll sit down. Like she's scared or something. So she hasn't really tried since then. Oh well, I'm not worried. She'll do it when she's ready. :) In the meantime I've been stocking up on shoes. I'm sure it'll happen like overnight.
  
• She has boycotted sleep. :( She has not slept through the night since Halloween weekend. Or a few days before that anyway. She got a cold that weekend, which lasted a good 10 days. She does not sleep when sick. Then when she got better, she would still wake up in the middle of the night! I thought, okay she's thrown off because she of her cold... Then a week later she was still waking up! I thought, okay she's going through a growth spurt cause she was wanting  a bottle in the middle of the night. Then She was STILL waking up a couple weeks later! I knew she had two teeth coming in, so I thought, okay she's just teething. Then she got another cold last week, which made it even worse! Now she's been waking up several times a night! It's so frustating! She's always been a good sleeper until this past month and a half.
  
  She's over her cold and is still not sleeping. Waking up anywhere from 1 - 3 times a night! Screaming and crying bloody murder in her crib.I've tried letting her cry. I let her go 15 minutes the other night (coming from a non CIO mom, that's serious), and it just escalated until I went and got her. At 4AM. She won't sleep in her crib at night either! She's wanting to be rocked to sleep. Fine, I have absolutely no problem rocking her to sleep. I would gladly rock her till she's 3. She stopped wanting to be rocked months ago, so like I said, I don't mind. But as soon as you lay her down in her crib she wakes up screaming. Either that, or she'll wake up an hour later screaming. The past few nights she's slept in bed with me. I guess I don't mind as long as we're all getting some sleep. Separation anxiety? I dunno. I just hope it goes back to normal soon. I also don't mind sharing the bed with her, but she's been tossing and turning a bunch. I'm a light sleeper, so it wakes me up, so I turn around and cuddle her, or pat her back until she's fully asleep again.
  
• Teeth: She has 6 teeth now! Her bottom two, and top 4. Or should I say top 3.5. The right one next to her two front teeth isn't fully out yet, but it's poked through. Doctor says she thinks she may have some molars coming soon... grrrreeeeat.
  
• Speaking of the doctor, she is 21.9lbs (hasn't gained any weight in 2 months, actually she lost an ounce). And she's 29 1/4 inches long. So she's grown taller, but is definitely thinning out. She looks so much like a little kid now and less like a baby every day.  And so much more like her Daddy!
  
• We've made the switch from formula to cow's milk now. She still only takes it from a bottle though, and it has to be warmed up a little. She's in the "I just throw my sippy on the floor" stage right now. I've been trying several different sippy cups to see which she likes best. Before she really seemed to like the straw sippies, but she doesn't like drinking milk from it, just water. So we'll keep trying.