I suppose I’ve come to terms with the fact that my baby is a year old. She’s definitely not slowing down at all, and is more of a toddler than a baby now, anyway. If I was to describe Raelin in one word, it would be MENACE. She is cute and smart and funny and all that fun baby stuff, but the girl is TROUBLE.

If something can be climbed, she will climb it. If it can’t be climbed, she will push something over to it in order to make it climbable. If something fits in her mouth, she will eat it, edible or not. I swear she has a sixth sense about when a door is left open that we usually keep closed, and she’s in there before I even notice she’s gone. I’m constantly chasing her away from the cats’ water dish, and out of the laundry room, out of the fireplace, and out of the garbage can (that she figured out how to open).

We are still nursing. I wasn’t planning on cutting her off any time soon, because we had been down to just nursing at night. But ever since she got a fever and a nasty cold a week ago, she’s been wanting to nurse all the time (usually letting me know by sticking her hand directly down my cleavage or yanking my shirt down in front of strangers). I know it’s good for her to get antibodies and such, so I’m going with it. For now.

She had a great first birthday party with family, and thoroughly enjoyed herself. She got really excited about her presents, which I didn’t expect from a one year old. She also completely devoured her little smash cake in a glorious explosion of crumbs and frosting.

Favorites: pushing a little doll stroller all over the house, looking at the family photos on the wall, carrying bags and purses, climbing on top of tables, opening and closing doors, pretending to talk on phones, her kiddie gym class, baths, snuggling with Daddy, laundry baskets, stealing juice from her sister, and babies. She says hi to practically everybody, so is not particularly put off by strangers. She can also say mama, baba usually means baby, and dada means just about everything else.

ANYWAY, seeing as it’s the day after Halloween, I guess this post will be about that. It was unpleasantly cold this year, which meant bulky coats covering the girls’ costumes, but I didn’t put a whole lot of effort into creating them, so that’s ok. If I had spent hours toiling over crafting handmade costumes, then maybe I’d be more irate. Luckily I am the anti-crafter so this wasn’t an issue.

When I first asked Rory what she wanted to be for Halloween, she declared, “An airplane!” Yeah, she dressed as an airplane last year. I gently suggested choosing something different. For a few weeks this was “a fishy!” I had almost started scouring the internet for fish costumes when she changed her mind and wanted to be a ballerina. Procrastination pays off, people. And Raelin, well, since she’s too little to express her opinion on the matter, I got to pick out the most ridiculous little garden gnome costume for her to wear.

Every five minutes, all day long, Rory asked me if it was time to trick-or-treat yet. I was on the verge of losing my damn mind, but her excitement was pretty cute. By the time I put her costume on that evening, she was practically running laps around the house, shouting things about ballerinas and twirling and candy. We all went out and visited around 10 houses before deciding enough was enough. It was freezing, Rory didn’t want to walk anymore, and her little basket was full. How much candy does a 3 year old need, really? The answer is probably one mini-sized candy bar, and the rest gets consumed by the parents, which is not great for the love handle situation.

Halloween 2012: Success!

Despite my insistence that she stays small, she has rudely continued to learn new things. She waves and says “Hi” to EVERYONE. She loves almost all people and had no problem going to relatives she’d never met before when we were in Germany. She’s also constantly applauding things. Stuff makes her so happy that she is a flurry of waves and smiles and claps and squeals. However, she is equally dramatic when unhappy, and has been known to throw epic fits when she doesn’t get what she wants. I fully expect her to be a drama queen for life.

Raelin is still all over the place. She has no fear. She climbs up on top of things like it’s nothing, and keeps doing it despite repeatedly falling on her face. She’s taken steps, and yesterday even made it all the way across the living room without falling. In Germany she recruited family she’d never met before to hold her hands so she could walk around. She does not like to be still for long. Or at all.

She also eats everything. Ralf’s parents were amazed and asked if it was normal for a baby to eat SO much, because she will try anything you give her, and if she likes it will eat more than my three year old most of the time. In Germany she was quite partial to Black Forest ham and döner.

Randoms:

• In addition to “hi” she also says “nein,” probably because she hears that more often than not.
• She loves to stick her tongue out all the way, and finds it hilarious.
• She now has four teeth, two on top and two on the bottom.

She climbed up a stack of suitcases the other day like it was Everest. She has climbed the entire staircase to the second floor. We put a gate there, obviously, but ANY time it is foolishly left open, she is climbing the stairs. She pushes anything that can be pushed and uses it as a walking aid. Her favorites are laundry baskets and dining chairs. Laundry baskets are also good for flinging herself into and out of head first. If I let her, she would chew on dirty shoes all day. Nothing is safe. NOTHING!

She is going through a rather clingy period, and her sleep is quite poor lately. This could be because she has been teething her top front teeth for weeks now. She also had an ear infection. Who knows. All I know is that I have been sleep deprived for months and that doesn’t make dealing with her craziness any easier.

Complaining aside, she is still my baby and I still love her and her squishy little butt. She’s so full of happiness and adorableness, and I’d be pissy too if I was getting four teeth at once. It’s easy to wish away the difficult periods, but I know she’s never going to be this age again, and she’s my last baby so I should savor the moments that she’s small. Oh, I try.

Current likes:
Clapping, especially if someone says “Yay!”
Waving hi and goodbye. I swear she even says “Hi” sometimes
Scaling things
Scrunching up her nose and loudly panting. I don’t know how else to describe this but it’s hilarious.
Food. Any food. Except avocado.
Banging on stuff
Eating unidentified tidbits off the floor

Current dislikes:
Hand/face wiping
Getting dressed
Diaper changes
Nail clipping
Being prevented from scaling things
Mom walking away/leaving the room

From the moment she wakes up until the moment she goes to sleep, Raelin just does not stop. I am constantly having to chase her away from the stairs (which she is now able to climb), cat food, dirty shoes, bookshelves, cat litter, various things that can kill her, and the fireplace. She pulls up on things and cruises one-handed, making her way to things in order to destroy and/or eat them. I am exhausted.

Because of her constant movement, my formerly giant baby is now just slightly above average at 19 lbs 10 oz. She is still tall but her chunks have greatly diminished. She still only has the two bottom teeth she got at 7 months old. She loves to eat and will eat just about anything you give her. She has little patience with being spoon fed so I usually only do it if I’m in a hurry. Otherwise she prefers to feed herself.

This entry is late partly because Raelin got some kind of virus right before turning 9 months old, with three days of a high fever and very little sleep, leaving me with barely enough energy to survive let alone form sentences in my brain and write them down. Then she got an ear infection. Rory was never sick until she was 2 years old so I can only guess she is bringing home germs from school and infecting her baby sister. Not cool, germy toddlers. Not cool.

Her main goal in life is ingesting things. Most of the time these are not edible things, hence my constant exhaustion. However, this kid is all about the food. If we are eating and she is not, there is going to be trouble. And she does not have the patience for being spoon fed, so luckily baby-led weaning is going well. She loves steamed broccoli, corn on the cob, bananas, pancakes, cheese, and Mum Mums. She actually got several comments at a Chinese buffet because she was chowing down on some corn on the cob, and people were amazed.

Other current favorites:

• Sound effect: raspberry
• Laugh: Jon Stewart as George W. Bush evil cackle
• Bath activity: splashing
• Toy: anything twice her size she can pull on top of herself
• Fart smell: rancid meat

She finally got her first tooth this past month, and the one next to it is close to coming through. They didn’t seem to bother her too much, but she has been a bit crabby recently. I feel like it’s maybe due to her getting frustrated about not being able to scale things, as opposed to teething pain, though. If this rebellious nature continues throughout her life, I fear for my future.

She is still waking up at night, usually once. Occasionally twice. Sometimes she’ll sleep through the night, but not often enough for my liking. Hopefully she gets with the program soon because I’m kind of over getting up in the middle of the night. But what can you do.

Anyway, here’s her monthly bear picture plus one I like to call “Baby’s First Nip-slip Whilst Vying for a Close-up.”

A constant blur

Raelin is still mostly bald, but her peach fuzz is filling in a bit more. When the light hits it, it’s kind of blonde. Her eyes have turned a hazel color like mine. She still doesn’t have any teeth, but that doesn’t stop her from nomming the crap out of things like broccoli or corn on the cob. And I haven’t mentioned nursing much, but that’s just because there’s not much to say. She’s still doing it, it’s not causing any issues, and it’s just a regular part of our day (and sometimes night, still). She babbles, which is adorable. It started with “ma ma ma” and now includes things like ba, na, da, and pterodactyl screeches.

I realize that they are different people, but it still amazes me how different Raelin is from Rory. They are both thumb-suckers who have always shunned pacifiers. Aside from that, they are completely different. Raelin is easy in all the ways Rory was hard. She’s also hard in the ways Rory was easy. I don’t think I ever had to chase after Rory the way I do with Raelin, the daredevil with a death wish. I am interested in seeing how they are similar and different as they grow up.

The week she turned 6 months old was a rough one. Raelin came down with her first illness, a double ear infection, and she was just miserable. My usually happy baby was a mess of snot and watery eyes and just generally unhappy. Thankfully she is back to her usual self, but still fighting the ear infection. She’s on some stronger medication, so hopefully it clears up soon.

6 months old also means the start of solid foods. She’s been doing great with Baby-Led Weaning! So far she’s had apples, cucumbers, toast, bananas, and carrots. I think the bananas were the biggest hit, as she was coated top to bottom in banana slime. There was also the most “evidence” of banana in her diaper than any other food. Yep, poop. Oh, and last night we gave her “loaded spoons” of potato cheese soup which she devoured. Here’s a video of her enjoying some cucumber with her Opa:

We’re getting to the point where the pink bear is no longer safe. This is the best picture I could get before she grabbed the unsuspecting animal and attempted to devour it. I can also no longer leave her on the floor, because she rolls herself clear across the room and grabs and tries to eat anything she finds. And thanks to Rory, the floor is full of toys and crumbs that I don’t really need the baby ingesting.

She has started to space out her feedings a bit more, and is very interested in our food when we eat. I plan on doing baby-led weaning once she reaches six months old, instead of doing baby food purees. I did homemade purees with Rory which was a lot of work, but after reading up about baby-led weaning (giving the baby large pieces of solid food instead of mush), it definitely seems like the way to go. I think Raelin will enjoy it, too!

Milestones & random tidbits:

• She rolled back to front one day after turning 4 months old. Still trying to master front to back.
• She has mastered the art of the raspberry, and is often covered in spit from chin to chest.
• Still in 9 month clothes… for now.
• She loves the jumperoo. Sometimes I think she’s going to spring right out of that thing.
• Her farts could kill a man.