Oh what fun, our girl is ONE! Claire Elaine Eberle, I can hardly remember life before you…and I sure can’t imagine life without you. Precious girl, you’re our world. And my goodness, the world is better with you in it. I’ll do a separate post about your 1st birthday party (it was a blast!), but let’s just say we celebrated in style.

 

You are busy and beautiful, feisty and friendly, sassy and sweet. You keep us on our toes — and we wouldn’t have it any other way.

Here are a few highlights of your 12 month:

Height: 31 1/2 inches — still in the 97th percentile! Weight: 21 pounds — which dropped you down to the 50th percentile. This worried me at first (since you’ve only gained a 1/2 pound since your 9-month appointment), but Dr. Wendy didn’t seem concerned at all. She says that your continued growth in height, plus your constant crawling, is balancing out any major weight gain. We’ll check back in at your 15-month appointment, but no worries so far. You’re just long and lean!

 

Eating: Your 12th month brought FOUR NEW TEETH, and oh my word sweetie, you’re using them well! You’re eating bigger chunks of food and chewing them like a big girl. It’s a lot of fun to watch you eat! We’ve been giving you four solid meals a day — breakfast, lunch, snack (after your 2nd nap), and dinner. Eggs remain the only food you refuse to try — and we’ve tried every form (scrambled, hard-boiled, egg salad, etc). Your favorite foods are cheese, bread, blueberries, peaches, frozen peas, and cucumber. Thankfully, you have no allergies so far!

I stopped pumping milk following my big California trip, and so we easily dropped the bottle. The harder task, of course, will be weaning. I’m absolutely delighted that we reached our breastfeeding goal (yay Claire!), and plan to stop nursing gradually over the next few weeks/months.

During the weaning process we’ll need to start introducing whole milk. We’ve tried it a few times, and you weren’t interested at all. But practice makes perfect, and we’ve been supplementing with lots of yogurt and cheese in the meantime.

Sleeping: Oh dear, if I’d written this blog post on time, I would have said that sleep was our biggest battle. In the last week of June, you started waking up inconsolable. For the first few nights we tried all our tricks from your little baby days…changing your diaper, rocking you back to sleep. Then, it kept happening. (And…honestly…we got lazy.) We were out of practice and 3 a.m. was painful!

So, we started putting you in our bed — and you slept like a (sleeping) baby for about a month. We figured July was full of travels and irregular schedules, we’d get back on track in August. When we went to your 12-month appointment, the doctor coached us on a very modified “Cry it Out” plan that wouldn’t be quite so traumatizing for any of us. We tried that for a week or two, and bam — you’re back to sleeping through the night in your bed. WHEW!

During this time, naps were a mess too. Some days you simply refused to go down! But I’m happy to report that this was all a phase — perhaps related to the FOUR teeth that all came in at once — and you’re our champ sleeper again. (It probably also helps that we have more routine to our schedule these days, a fact that seems to make everyone happier.)

Playing: When you’re awake, you’re go-go-go! Crawling is still your typical method of travel, although in the past week you’ve started walking while you hold a hand. It’s adorable — and you’re mighty proud. You’ve started wearing shoes, which you enjoy — and now you love to put pairs on and take them off.

You’re a huge fan of animals — especially dogs. Mommy and Daddy take twice-weekly runs through Davidson, and your favorite part is pointing and laughing at all the doggies on the path. One of the sweetest things you do is sloppy-kiss stuffed animals!

You got a Pottery Barn “Claire Chair” for your birthday and will climb in it and sit like a big girl. You adore books, and have more patience these days as we try to read them to you. You also got a set of MegaBlocks (basically big legos) for your birthday, and we’ve been delighted to watch how much you enjoy building with them.

Taking you to the children’s museum is an all-new experience these days. You’re over the baby zone (boring, you think!), and will spend time wandering through the mini-vet, grocery, and under-water area. You love watching and mingling with the “big kids” and have no concept of your age and size.

Despite the tons and tons of toys we’re blessed to have, your very favorite things are levers, knobs, doors, drawers, remotes, and buttons. You love to empty boxes and bowls, and then fill them up again. And we love watching you learn and grow every single day!

We can hardly wait to see how much you’ll change in the next year, sweet girl. We’re already so very proud of you, your curiosity, your independence, and your determination. You’re a special, special girl, Claire Bear. Thank you for being ours 🙂

Love, Mommy and Daddy