12 Months Old

Dear Laura,

You are absolutely a delight and a very determined little girl.

Laura you really, really want to feed yourself.  When faced with the choice of independence or a full stomach, you choose independence every time.  The amazing thing is that after a few rough weeks, you have figured out how to use a regular spoon a fork fairly well by yourself.  We have also figured out that if we set you up with your own bowl/spoon/food, we can also sneak in a few bites with a separate bowl/food/spoon that we keep out of sight.

You still only have two teeth on the bottom, but that isn’t slowing you down a bit.  You love eating whole slices of pizza with us or just about anything you see someone eating.  We haven’t given you many treats, but you absolutely loved the gingerbread cookies we made a few days ago.

Climbing is one of your favorite things.  You have a sense of where to find stairs and you climb up over and over again no matter how many times we bring you back down.  You haven’t figured out how to go down yet, but you have navigated getting off the couch and Emily and Nathan’s lower beds head first.  Other favorite things to climb include couches, the kid’s chairs, the pickler triangle, and playground equipment.

You love to sit and rock in the little rocking chair and will do so for a long time.  You are also standing and walking along furniture pretty well and occasionally stand unassisted for a few moments too.

Every chance you get you escape to the bathroom to either stand along the bathtub or play in the toilet.  When we make eye contact because you were checking to see if it was an opportune moment, you turn and dash as quickly as you can in that direction.  More often than not, you get to play for a bit before we realize you snuck away.

You love playing peek-a-boo with us.  When we say “Where’s Laura?” you quickly cover your eyes and then pop out behind them.  We’ve recently discovered this helps you stay in one place during diaper changes, which are not something you usually hold still for.

Putting in and taking out is a game that you enjoy.  Whether it is unloading or loading the dishwasher, or dumping out and putting away toys, or putting clothes in and out of the laundry basket, you are quick to join in.

Flipping through books is another thing you do a lot by yourself.  We do try to read books to you, and your attention span is slowing increasing from no pages to a few, but you much prefer just looking at the book in your own hands.

One of your favorite things is dancing.  You lead music and dance by yourself, but you especially love it when we scoop you up and dance with you.  I’ve added playing guitar during breakfast because you love it dancing to it that much.

Laura you are incredibly friendly and have helped us get to know many people since we moved to Connecticut.  You smile, wave, and chat with just about everyone you see. And when I say chat, I mean chat.  You clearly articulate and communicate and tell stories with great detail and voice inflections.  Eye contact is very important to you and if I look away or my eyes wander you move your head until we lock eyes again and then you continue.

When you get hurt or a toy taken from you, you cry for a few moments and then find me or dad, make eye contact, and then start talking out what happened.  When you start talking you calm right down and once you have expressed the experience in full you return to what you were doing.

You are waffling between one or two naps a day, and nights are pretty unpredictable with how many times you wake up.

Laura we all love you so much.  It is a delight to see you playing with your siblings and joining in on our conversations at dinner or singing a song with all of us and dancing.  We are so grateful you are part of this family!

You’ve grown very attached to your dog and when I tried to take a picture without it you were very upset.  After I handed it back you then would pretend to hand it to me and pull it back to you repeatedly.