Yesterday was Alethea’s fourteen month birthday.  Happy birthday, Baby!

Alethea finally got her last two front bottom teeth, which brings her tooth count up to 12.  It looks like her 4 canines are getting ready to come in as well and I’m hoping that they do it quickly so that we can have a break from teething for a while.  I’m also hoping that if Alethea has a period of not teething, maybe we can also have a period of not chewing everything she gets her hands on, but I’m only vaguely hopeful.

Despite Alethea frequently parroting words she hears Peter and I say, she hasn’t added greatly to her working vocabulary this month.  However, two new words that she does use pretty consistently are ‘grandpa’ and ‘night-night’.  She especially likes the later and has even communicated to Peter or I that she wants to go to bed by coming up and saying ‘nigh-nigh’ (it doesn’t have t’s when she says it).

This months favorite activities included reading books (on her own, she doesn’t like to have other people read to her at this point), playing with her Fisher Price Little People farm and animals, and taking everything out of the kitchen cupboards and drawers.

One change I’ve noticed in her socially is that she now wants to constantly be wherever I am, even though she used to prefer running around the house by herself.  It doesn’t seem to be so much that she needs more attention, but rather that she feels the need to keep tabs on what I’m doing at all times.  It’s like she’s afraid she’ll miss out on something exciting.

Other than those things, I think she’s about the same as she was last month, no ground breaking developments to report.  We continue to enjoy our happy independent girl and can’t wait to see what happens next.

I know it’s been a while since I posted pics of Alethea.  Confession time: I haven’t been taking many pictures lately.  I do however have Alethea’s birthday party photos and even though it was over a month ago, I thought some of you out there in bloggy land might enjoy them anyway.

Happy Birthday Alethea!

Opening Presents was Fun!

Alethea wasn't the only one interested in the Alphabet Pal

The xylophone was also a big hit

Apparently it tasted good too

Alethea liked her table and chairs from Mommy and Daddy...

But she thought eating wrapping paper was the best thing of all!

Alethea was mad when I blew out her candle...

But she sure enjoyed her ice cream cake!

This morning we went to the Target Portrait Studio to get Alethea’s one year photos taken.  I know I’m over a month past her birthday, but I’ve been putting off scheduling an appointment because Alethea has had one bruise after another on her forehead and I was hoping for bruise-free photos.  Finally I just decided that I’d better schedule the sitting and make the best of it before we were taking 20 month photos instead and what do you know, the past few days have been bruise-free and things were looking promising for this morning’s photo shoot.  So far, so good…

Now just have to get her dressed and out the door…

I’m not sure how she knows, but Alethea always seems to sense when I most need her to cooperate and get going quickly and that is always when she is the most difficult.  She did not want to get dressed.  She wanted to read books.  We compromised with me putting her clothes on while she stood next to her shelf and pulled all the books off.  Seemed like a good idea at the time.

The diaper cover went on okay, but as I pull the dress over her head, she looses her balance and ‘whack’ her forehead smacks the bookcase.  As I groan, she bursts into tears and I contemplate whether to call off the whole thing.  But she’ll never be a one-year-old again, so we finish getting ready and run out the door.

After a frustrating photo shoot that included Alethea crying whenever we tried to get her to sit on the floor, her throwing the letter “o” (part of the word “one”) across the room multiple times, and generally just being difficult, we got a handful of good pictures and I think I actually heard the photographer sigh with relief when we left.

Not really.  The photographer was very professional, but after Alethea screaming for the last half of her infant pictures and now this at her one-year set, we may end up on some sort of Target Portrait Studio black list.

Any chance she’ll be more cooperative at two years?  One can only hope.