Claire at Twelve Months

Claire had her one year check-up the day after her birthday. Her stats at 12 months are:

Height: 27.5 inches (5th percentile)

Weight: 16.5 pounds (3rd percentile)

Head: 17.625 inches (25th percentile)

She got 4 shots - what a birthday present, right? She did really well and only cried for a minute. We were all glad when they were over, though!

Claire seems to have developed so much in the last few weeks. She can say a couple of words - "Mama" and "more" - and she tries to say many more. She's learning "hi", "bye bye", "book" and "woof woof" (she has a book about dogs that has lots of barking words). Claire waves like a champ - her daddy thinks she may have a future as a parade princess!

Claire is learning to follow simple directions such as "come to Mama/Daddy" and "wave hi/bye bye", and we know she understands what "no" means, although she likes to test her boundaries. She's also initiating little games, like sometimes when I go to pick her up, she grins and starts crawling away, then looks back to see if I'm following her. She also likes to "get Mommy" - she'll reach out and grab my arm or shirt, and just cackles when I pull away in mock surprise. So cute!

Right now we're really working on walking since she's the youngest in her class and the only one still crawling everywhere. Over the weekend we saw her let go of the furniture and stand by herself for a few seconds, and today her teacher said she saw Claire let go, too. Claire likes walking if you hold her hands, and she can go really fast! At this point I think she could physically do it if she wanted to, but she's not quite ready to fully make the leap.

We're also working on table foods, and getting ready to transition away from bottles. We have busy weekends coming up, but I'm hoping that we can just go cold turkey on the bottles one Saturday and see how she does with the sippy cups, although I may let her keep her night bottle for a little while. She still loves puffs and cheerios and gets really excited for her yogurt every morning. She's getting good at chewing (with her 10 (!) teeth) and enjoys eating chicken, peas, fish bites, macaroni and cheese bites, applesauce and carrots.

This is such a fun stage of learning and exploration - I'm looking forward to seeing what she's able to do next month!