Our sweet Lydia just turned one year old! Happy birthday, Dear Girl!
She changed so much between months 11 and 12, Peter and I keep talking about how every time we turn around, she’s doing something new! But before we get into that, here are Lydia’s current stats: Height 29 inches and Weight 24 lbs 4 oz, which means she is in the 43rd percentile for height and 89th for weight. Unfortunately, the nurse forgot to write down her head circumference, so I don’t have an exact measurement, but she did write down the percentile. Want to guess? You got it! Like a true Bobble Head Baby, she’s in the 99th percentile for head circumference!
This is the month when Lydia really got moving! At the beginning of December she was still mostly army crawling, hadn’t climbed up a single stair, and despite pulling up to a stand on a fairly regular basis, hadn’t taken any free steps. Now she climbs stairs like a pro, rarely crawls at all, and walks everywhere, mostly holding onto things, but sometimes letting to and taking a few steps between handholds. Basically, she gets where she wants to go and gets there in a hurry!
In addition to practicing new moves, she’s also been expanding her vocabulary. At one year, her frequently used words were: Mama, Dada, all done (ah da), night night (nigh nigh) and shoes (shhz). And it does make me laugh that one of her first five words was shoes (so girly!), but she’s obsessed with them, so I guess it makes sense.
Lydia says some ‘real’ words now, but she also babbles unintelligibly more than she did a month ago. She also clearly understands more and more of what is being said around her. The other night, Alethea tunelessly said the words, “Twinkle Little Star,” and Lydia started dancing (i.e. swaying back and forth) so we knew Lydia recognized it as the name of a song. I have been told by several people that a highly verbal first born can sometimes lead to a less verbal second child since the older one does all the talking, but it doesn’t seem like that is going to be the case in our house.
Lydia’s favorite things currently include: eating (it doesn’t much matter what), baths, reading books, getting into whatever Alethea is doing, and giving the most amazing hugs. She’s a super affectionate child and will periodically stop whatever she’s doing to come over and wrap her arms around me. She’ll even pat my back with her hand and say, “Awww,” as she does it, which makes me smile every time.
The things she dislikes aren’t many, but include: being put down or walked away from, not being allowed to do what Alethea is doing, and her carseat. Buckling her into the car has become considerably more difficult since she discovered the ‘arch my back and become as stiff as a board’ maneuver. Good times!
Happy birthday, Lydia Grace! Thank you for being ours for a whole year. We can’t wait to see what surprises you have in store for us in the year ahead! We love you!