The Pumpkin's First Year - Part Two

When the Pumpkin turned six months old, she really started to show her personality more, and it is a smiley and happy personality. During her seventh month, she got much better at sitting up and went from doing the army crawl to real hands and knees crawling. She even started pulling herself up to standing. We started her on solid foods, her first food being banana (a food that I personally can't stand the smell or taste of, but she seemed to really enjoy). She didn't ingest much for the first month, but she really enjoyed playing with the food and putting it in her mouth. Her sleeping, however, was the toughest thing at this stage. It was starting to impove, and then got bad all over again. We decided that as long as she wasn't sleeping well, she could do it in her own room. So we moved her into her nursery, and when she would wake up after 2, I would go in and cosleep with her in the twin bed in the nursery. So, days were great, but nights were rough.

The eighth month started with all of us sick, which was extra tough on the baby at night. Luckily, it didn't last too long. During this month of her life, we celebrated Halloween, with the Pumpkin dressed up as a unicorn with wings! (I was a fairy and Londo was a knight, because I love a theme.) This month, I really saw a leap forward in her development. She finally started to GET things. If she moved something and it made a funny noise, she would look at it and do it again on purpose. Her moods and your sleep were still a roller coaster, going from great to horrible. But in general, her sleep started getting better and we even had some morning that were pretty easy.

The ninth month included Thanksgiving, which was a great time at the in laws, although the drive was horrible. This was also the month which I started this blog. In general, she slept alright, except for some nights of teething difficulties and when we were visiting the in laws and not in our own house. This month, she started crawling on top of things and climbing up stairs (but not down yet). She also started cruising along the furniture. She was pretty good during the day, but still not sleeping through the night and still fussy and clingy in the mornings. She went through a bit of separation anxiety. But most importantly, she was able to do so much more. I could put her down and let her play with stuff for chunks of time. She started to figure out different games and toys and how her body worked. It was pretty amazing.

The tenth month was even better than the ninth. Things were improving. She was exploring her world, and really starting to enjoy it! Her eating was going well, and she now had 6 teeth. She seemed to enjoy Christmas, even though it was stressful on Londo and me. And I believe this was the month that you said your first word: cat. (Because the cat is always there for you, feeding you, loving you, rocking you to sleep... no wait, that's not our aloof, uninterested cat at all!) This was also the month the Pumpkin took a step on her own!

Then came the eleventh month, in which she started really walking. At times she was clingy and wanted Mama-and-only-Mama, and at other times she wanted to be down and moving on her own. She started really sleeping all the way through the night until morning, which was the bestest thing ever for us parents, although it was not every single night. I also went away for three whole nights, my first ever nights away from the Pumpkin, and she and Londo did fine. She started saying animals noised this month, too! And some words like "dada" although "mama" came not long after. We went to Water Babies this month and had lots of fun. Oh, and she started dancing a bit when she heard music, which was so cute.

This past month, her twelfth month of life, has been so great. She has been a joy to be around during the day, and sleeping almost the whole month through the night. She had some napping issues, and we thought she'd be transitioning to one nap, but then she went back to doing two naps. She became even more interactive and played fun games. She loves to walk around and climb on things, so we tried a Little Gym class and signed up. Mostly, she has just been fun to be around and is turning into a little person. It's the most amazing thing to see. How she went from this little newborn who couldn't do anything but cry and eat to this little toddler who runs around, laughs, babbles and says words and animals noises, points to things she wants, let's us know her preferences for foods and activities and gives us hugs and kisses!

This has been the hardest and best year of my life. It's just incredible that Londo and I made this little being and that she is really her own person. And I can't get over how much babies learn, grow and develop in this first year. I've seen other kids do it, but it's completely different when you see your child every day and realize how much they change throughout the year, especially this very magical first year.