So kid. You are a year old. Amazing. The last year has been quite an adventure! It’s certainly had it’s ups and downs, but I can say unequivocally that getting you as a daughter is definitely one of the best things that has ever happened in my life.

First of all, I apologise for missing the 11 month update. Between illness and teething, you’ve been a lot of work for the last month and a half and I’ve not been up to doing much besides the basics of parenting. I’ll try to cover the last month and a half in this one…

Your vocabulary is growing. After “dada” your next words were “Hi!” and “crocodile”. Yes, crocodile. You have quite a few books with crocodiles in them including your beloved bath book about Conrad the Crocodile. You also say “Gada” for Grandad and “cat” or “caga” after having spent a couple of days at your Nana & Grandad’s house where you joyfully chased the cats around. You frequently try to imitate words that we say. You’ve said “Buppa” a few times when we look at the photo of Oma & Opa on the fridge and you have pronounced perfectly clearly words like “cow” and “Leah”  but they aren’t yet part of your regular vocabulary. You also make a little throat growly sound which seems to be your attempt at making animal sounds.

You still don’t crawl, stand unsupported for more than a few seconds or pull yourself up very much, but you are getting awfully good at walking. Three weeks ago you still needed us to hold both of your hands when you walked. Now you cruise along with only one hand holding on to someone. You still prefer to have something in both hands when you walk around, and while clothes pegs remain your top preference just about anything will do including the remote controls.

Sleep has been much more of a problem for the last month. You had about 3 1/2 months straight of reliably taking a 2-3 hour nap every morning but then illness and teething came along and now you are as likely to only sleep for 1/2 hour in the morning as you are to sleep for 2-3 hours. When you don’t get a long morning nap you are tired and cranky all through the rest of the day and it can be awfully trying. During the last month you’ve been waking up more in the middle of the night too. The combination of sleep-deprived baby, sleep-deprived mummy and sleep-deprived daddy is not really desirable, to say the least.

Eating isn’t any better than it was a month and a half ago. You’ll still eat banana fairly reliably. Anything is up for grabs. You eat a lot less than you used to too, although I guess that’s fairly normal at this age. You’ve been known to skip meals entirely – just absolutely refuse to eat. A couple of times we’ve given you your supper in the bath because you would eat it there but not in your high chair. The lengths we go to… At least clean up is easy when you eat in the bath!

You LOVE having songs sung to you and it’s so fun to see how fast you’re learning motions to go with songs. You wave your arms around appropriately for “The Wheels on the Bus” and you stick your tongue in and out along with “Little Green Frog”. One night when getting you ready for bed I started singing “Twinkle, Twinkle Little Star” and your daddy noticed you moving your fingers. For a minute we weren’t sure what you were doing since it was a very similar motion to your attempt to do a crocodile “Snap!”.  Then we realised that you were doing the motion for “Twinkle, Twinkle” – something you had apparently learned in nursery! You also use the motions to request particular songs – including bobbing up and down on our laps to ask for “Pony Girl” and “This is the way the gentlemen ride” and “Horsey, Horsey”.

I taught you how to point to other people’s noses, and you take great delight in pointing out the nose on dolls, stuffed animals, pictures in books and especially mummy & daddy. One night when you were in the bath I made a comment about cleaning your dirty nose and you pointed right to your nose. When we said, “Yes! That’s your nose. Very good!” you pointed to your mouth and looked at us expectantly. When we named that your pointed to your ear. Apparently you had learned all of this just that day in nursery. What an impressive little girl!

I am so looking forward to this next year and witnessing you discover more and more of your world and learning how to respond to it and express yourself. You are our precious, beloved baby girl. I can hardly imagine my life without you in it. I love you so much, Elisabeth Soraya Clare!