Miriam - first steps and first (bad) cold

It has been a while since I've updated about Miriam.  She's (slowly) starting to walk!  She's up to about 9 or 10 steps, but has definitely realized the crawling is still faster, and most of the time crawls if she wants to get somewhere in a hurry.  She's fairly steady on her feet when she does walk, although she moves quite slowly.  We have yet to capture any of her walking on video yet, as she quits walking as soon as she sees us getting out a camera. 

In other news, Miriam is still recovering from what has been her worst cold/cough yet.  Last week she suddenly developed a horrible cough (almost overnight), and we took her to the doctor, who diagnosed her with croup.  After some meds (which she really disliked taking, of course), her croup slowly got better, but she's still had quite a bad cold and cough for about a week.  She just yesterday starting getting her appetite back and had energy to play a little bit.  She's such a sweetie, even when she is sick.  She lounges around a lot more, doesn't have much of an appetite, but lets us cuddle and kiss her a lot. 

Miriam has recently been adding some new words to her vocabulary.  She says "all done" now, correctly.  For example, this morning I was trying to clean her face, and she kept pushing my hands away and saying "all done!"  Ha.  She continues to say "idada" (Hi Dada) and "itty" (Kitty).  She also says uh-oh a lot, whenever she drops something or something falls on the ground.  She uses this correctly, especially when she deliberately drops something.  ;)  We are working on identifying parts of the body now (she knows nose, but can't say it) and on having her say and/or sign "please". 

I don't have many recent pictures, since she's been sick and we haven't been taking any when she isn't feeling well.  We'll try to get back into taking more photos of her now that she's feeling better.  Here are a few recent ones that we do have:

Sick baby, sleeping in daddy's arms

Peek-a-boo!

Dressed up for a birthday party!

Miriam and her wagon

For her first birthday we got Miriam a wagon.  On her birthday, my friend Pat came over and gave her birthday presents.  One of the presents included a small wagon, meant for children to pull.  (The wagon itself is just slightly larger than a shoebox.)  For fun, Mario put her in the small wagon and pulled her around the house.  She loved it, even though she was squished and her legs stuck out the front.  Anytime we took her out, she got upset and started fussing until we put her back in the wagon. 

Earlier this week, her big, outdoor wagon (red, Radio Flyer) arrived.  It has been pouring rain here all week so we haven't had a chance to use it until today.  Mario put it together this morning and we took her out for a ride this afternoon.  She loved it, and sat happily in it for many rides around the median in front of our house.  (It looked like it might rain any minute, so we didn't dare venture any further from our house.) 

Here are some pictures of Miriam in her wagon:

And some other pictures of our sweet girl:

Such a big girl in her crib...

And a picture from last March, for comparison...



Our sweet Miriam is 1 year old!!

Hard to believe, isn't it?  I wonder if time went this quickly for our parents when we were growing up, because as a kid, time always seems to go more slowly.  Then suddenly it speeds up when you become and adult, and seems to go even faster once you yourself become a parent. 

1 year ago today, our sweet daughter was born.  What a year it has been.  365 days...about 4,000 diapers, 800 outfit changes, 50 hours of flying, 5 different sizes of outfits, hours of crying and even more hours of smiles and giggles.  We've had about 1,500 feedings, 7 teeth, 1 huge snowstorm, 52 dinners out, 300 games of "peek-a-boo", 100 skype chats with family, and hundreds of hours of chasing each other around the house.  She's slept in 5 different kinds of beds, collects 8 pacifiers in her crib every night, gone for 50+ walks in her stroller, and has about 1937549832 different toys.  (A slight exaggeration, of course.) 

It is so hard to write a summary of such an amazing year, and I feel like each monthly post is a good representation of how she's grown and changed throughout this year.  Instead of a summary, I'm going to try to describe the little girl that has grown out of our newborn from just a year ago. 

Miriam is a very fun, strong-willed, happy little girl.  She is always on the go and is extremely persistent about going after things she wants, especially if we don't want her near them.  This includes things like climbing on the fireplace hearth, taking the dishwasher magnet off the dishwasher, and chasing the cat.  She loves to play "peek-a-boo", and any other game that involves an element of surprise.  She loves to chase and be chased around the house, which usually involves one or both of us crawling around on the floor with her.  She is quite vocal and doesn't hesitate to protest loudly ("squawk") if we tell her "no" or take something away from her that she wants.  She can be quite stubborn when she wants to be (remind you of anyone?) and if she decides she doesn't want to eat, nothing we can do will make her finish her bottle/meal unless she changes her mind. 

She has started to say several words and sign some others.  She can use sign language to communicate "milk" and "more", and she can say "awda" (which is "all done", and she says it correctly only some of the time), "idada" (Hi Dada) and "itty" (Kitty).  Unless she is tired or feeling sick, she babbles quite a lot during the day.  However, she is usually much quieter when she is in public or around people she doesn't know. 

Miriam gives kisses now, which is adorable.  She doesn't always give kisses if you ask her, but she does know what they are and will give them if she is in the mood.  She opens her mouth and presses it against our cheeks.  Cute!

She isn't walking by herself yet, but we know it is only a matter of time.  She doesn't seem to have the confidence to stand or walk by herself yet, but she does have the balance (we've seen her stand on her own many times, when she doesn't realize she's doing it) and we figure as soon as she feels a bit more comfortable, she'll be off.  A new milestone that we've recently reached is the 12 hours of sleep at night.  She puts herself to sleep now at night, after a bedtime routine that includes stories and her mobile, which projects a picture on the ceiling while playing music.  She sleeps 10-11 hours at night during the week, and often sleeps 12 hours at night on the weekends. 

Miriam is continuing to explore new foods, but she hasn't yet shown a voracious appetite for solids.  She doesn't like pasta at all, but she loves bread and cheese (a girl after my own heart!) and dislikes whole peas (a girl after her daddy's heart, we say...).  She goes back and forth about liking blueberries, but will almost always eat banana, sweet potato and corn.  She had a grilled cheese sandwich for the first time a couple weeks ago, and ate almost an entire half sandwich by herself.  (And of course, why wouldn't she?  It is made of bread and cheese, two of her favorite things!)  We are continuing to try introducing new foods to her, but she doesn't seem in a rush to try or eat a lot of new foods yet. 

To sum it up, what an amazing whirlwind of a year it has been.  Just when we thought we'd gotten something figured out (gas problems, sleeping problems, teething problems, bedtime routine, soothing activities), she'd grow a bit more and change our whole routine!  However, when we think back on the year, it isn't the difficult times we remember...it is her adorable toothless smile, her legs pumping with excitement, her giggle when we chase her, her little warm body snuggled up against us, and the happiness we feel as a result of her presence in our lives.  What a wonderful year it has been.  Thanks for sharing this journey with us.

A timeline of pictures from the last year:

Other pictures, from February/March as well as birthday pictures:

Comfy at home in her slippers!

One of her new favorite activities - putting a bowl in her head!

This is how I found her sleeping one morning when I went in to get her.

She always comes right up to the camera and makes this face now...maybe she thinks she's smiling?!?

Almost walking...

She only ate a bite or two of cake before she decided she didn't want anymore.  She then ate a bunch of blueberries.  Good for her for choosing healthy food over sweets!

Showing us she's tired...

...and more showing us she's tired.

1 month until Miriam is 1!

That means she is 11 months old now!  She has grown and changed so much in the last month.  She started crawling, slowly, then decided crawling wasn't good enough.  She started pulling up on things, unsure at first, then started cruising around holding onto furniture.  Now she moves all over the place, both by crawling (very quickly!) and holding onto furniture.  She hasn't taken steps by herself yet, but I'm sure that will be happening in the next couple months.  She can stand up by herself, she's shown us, but doesn't have the confidence to do it very often.  (Last time she did it was unplanned...she wanted to hold on to a toy with both hands, so she let go of the table and was standing.  As soon as she realized that she wasn't holding onto anything, she quickly dropped the toy and grabbed back onto the table.)  And actually, since I started typing this post two days ago, she stood by herself several times today.  She was playing with Mario on the floor and supporting herself against him, then just let go and stood by herself, holding a toy.  She's pretty steady on her feet once she does let go of us!

Her favorite activity these days is destruction.  Basically, she spends her time making our living room (as well as her bedroom) look like they were hit by a tornado.  She loves to pull books off the shelves, diapers off the shelf, toys out of the basket, clothes out of the closet, etc.  In recent days, we have seen some interest in putting toys and clothes back where they belong, so there is hope that she'll eventually clean up after herself!

She's started exploring more finger foods and can feed herself pretty well if we put food on her high chair.  She loves frozen blueberries, cheese, yogurt and sweet potatoes (still).  She gets frustrated sometimes when we want to feed her food with a spoon...she just wants to pick up food and eat it herself!

We flew to Indiana at the end of January for my grandma's funeral.  Mario and Miriam came with me, and it was precious time spent with family, remembering my grandma.  On the day we flew back (January 31), we discovered that Miriam had 4 teeth coming through on the top.  Since then all 4 of those teeth have broken through, and they don't seem to be bothering her as much as when she was teething. 

Here are some photos from the past month of Miriam.  Next time I post an age update about Miriam, it will be that she is a year old!  It is truly hard to believe.  We watched some home videos of her today, and she was such a tiny little thing...not so much anymore!