Brooklyn: 12 Months Old

Well, it’s here. Brooklyn is a YEAR old (as of last week)! In some ways, this year has flown by, but it also feels like she has been with us forever. This past month especially went by fast, and it was a great month overall.

We went for her checkup yesterday (about a week after her birthday), and Brooklyn weighs 20 lbs 15 1/2 oz (65th percentile) and is 29 inches long (50th percentile). Our good eater continues to make us very happy by making meal time pretty easy. Brooklyn is still nursing with no signs of wanting to wean, and I’m not as ready as I thought I might be to give it up. We had such a hard time with it for the first several months, but I’ve really grown to enjoy it since then. I guess we’ll see how it goes from here. I’d like to cut back to only nursing first thing in the morning and right before bed, so hopefully we will get there soon. Brooklyn tried whole cow’s milk for the first time last week, and she seemed okay with it. She is also eating three good meals a day. Usually, she eats yogurt with fruit or scrambled eggs for breakfast. Lunch is usually some sort of veggie (sweet potatoes, carrots, zucchini, etc.) and fruit, and she usually eats what we eat for supper unless it is really spicy or hard to chew. Basically, she will eat anything! She is a huge beggar and will stand by the couch and fuss if we are eating something she wants. She has tried popcorn (little pieces of it), pickles, grapefruit, etc. and likes all of it. We are very lucky!

Brooklyn is sleeping through the night for the most part. Usually at least once or twice a week, she’ll wake up crying in the middle of the night. I don’t know what causes that on some nights and not others. I’m just thankful for the good nights of sleep we do get! She usually sleeps from 9 PM to 7 AM, and she still takes two naps a day. Her naps usually last about a hour and are sometimes a little longer than that, depending on how tired she is. She still sucks her left thumb when it’s time to go to sleep :)

Brooklyn now has FOUR teeth–two on top and two on bottom. I can’t see any evidence of another one on the way, but who knows. That could be the answer to her waking up at night sometimes. She has this annoying habit of grinding her teeth together, but at least she doesn’t do that very often. It makes me cringe to hear that sound! We recently started brushing her teeth, and she LOVES it! I think she would love to just chew on her toothbrush all day long if I’d let her. She loves to “help” me brush her teeth by holding the toothbrush and moving it around. It’s pretty cute!

I wish I had a dollar for every time that someone has asked me, “Is Brooklyn walking yet?” The answer is NO! I know people are just curious, but it starts to make me feel like something is wrong with her after I get asked all the time. She is definitely getting stronger and more steady though! Brooklyn is pulling up with no problem these days and cruising around while holding onto furniture. She hasn’t mastered the art of standing by herself yet, but I feel like that’s just right around the corner. She can sit down from a standing position with ease too. She is super fast at crawling, and she constantly amazes me by how fast she can get across the room.

Brooklyn has figured out how to open cabinets, so her new favorite activity is taking anything IN the cabinets OUT onto the floor. It makes for a fun cleanup game for Mommy and Daddy! :) She especially loves the Tupperware cabinet; there is no telling how many times she’s gotten in there in the past couple of weeks. It’s a good thing we have a lock on the cabinet with the cleaning stuff in it, or I’m sure she would have gotten into that already. She also still loves getting into the pantry when I accidentally leave the door open. Nothing on the bottom two shelves is safe. You should see our pantry right now…it is SO unorganized!!! It’s driving me crazy! :)

Brooklyn spends her days exploring the house. Another one of her favorite things to do is “helping” unload the dishwasher (even if the dishes are dirty!). She is also taking after her daddy and his love of computers. I have to be careful about leaving my laptop out because I find her at least once a day “typing” on it. If you ever get an email with gibberish in it, I’m blaming her! :) She also likes to unroll the toilet paper, play with our phones, and push buttons on the TV remote. One day recently she recorded a show on the Golf Channel called “5 Ways to Improve Your Golf Swing”. I guess she was trying to tell her daddy something! ;)

One of the biggest changes we’ve noticed this month is in Brooklyn’s language skills. She is now saying several words that we can understand! She says “Da” or “Da-Da” for Daddy. She says “ma-ma” for Mommy. But her favorite word of all right now is “dog” or “doggie”. She says “dog” all the time, including when she sees our cats! It’s hilarious! Sometimes, when she is eating, we’ll say “yum yum”, and she’ll either say “ah-mum” or “mum mum”. We can really tell that she is trying to imitate our words! It’s pretty cool.

Brooklyn is still a mommy’s girl, but she seems to be slowly getting past that stage. For a while, she would cry most of the time if anyone but me held her. Now, she’s fine with other people for the most part, but she still usually only sucks her thumb if I’m holding her. For now, I guess Mommy = comfort :)

Right now, Brooklyn’s favorite things are exploring the house, getting into everything she can find, looking at books, taking baths, chasing Mommy or Daddy around the living room and being chased back, being tickled, and petting Gabby/chasing her around the house.

Her least favorite things are getting a toy or other thing taken away from her, getting dressed and undressed, getting ready for bed, being put in her crib when she doesn’t want to sleep, and getting told “NO” when she wants to do something.

Brooklyn is wearing mostly 12-18 month clothing. 18 month clothes are starting to fit a little bit better. She is still in size 3 diapers. She is wearing mostly size 3 shoes, although she has worn some 4s (they are still a little bit too big). Most of her headbands are getting really snug, so hopefully her hair will grow out more soon so that she can start wearing some bows! :)

Brooklyn, we never could’ve imagined what our lives would be like with you in it! It’s been an incredible year! It’s been an adjustment, for sure, but we’ve made it through, and it has definitely been worth it. You are so much fun, and you amaze us every day with the things you learn. We are really looking forward to year #2! We love you!!!