13 Months

Jillian turned 13 months old over the weekend. I would have posted about urgent development sooner, but I was overcome by a lovely GI bug or something similar. At first I thought that it was just an errant wave of morning sickness that decided to pound me at 15 weeks. But then other symptoms developed that made that diagnosis unlikely. Let's just sum the whole thing up by saying Monday was not fun. Today I'm feeling better. Not 100%, but hell I haven't felt 100% since before Jillian was born.

Anyhow, back to the whole Jillian being 13 months old thing. She has become quite the climber these days. She loves to scale tall pieces of furniture, stand on them, and strike fear in the hearts of her parents as we try to prevent her from falling. Sometimes we are successful. Sometimes we are not. And honestly my motivation from saving her from hurting herself is entirely linked to the height of the object upon which she is standing. If it is her kid sized chair, I usually let her deal with the ramifications. If it is the end table, well I'm more cautious.

She has also discovered the downward dog position of yoga. I'm not sure how exactly, given that I have never done yoga. (It's just not my thing you know given that it involves that impossible combination of coordination, flexibility and exercise). But regardless I find her in that position quite regularly. She finds it especially enjoyable if you peek between her legs so that she can see you upside down. That, my friends, can conjure up nearly as many giggles as a good game of peek-a-boo.

Teeth #3 and #4 are on their way in. I must admit that I kind of miss the two bottom teeth only look. It was awfully cute. The new teeth are still at the awkward stage where one has grown in more than the other. She already seems to be able to bite off pieces of food better, so I suppose that functionality takes precedence over looks. I am a bit curious to see how straight these teeth grow in. Between my and Jeramy's orthodontia history, this kid is pretty much guaranteed to wear braces in the future.

Jillian has made great strides in the sleeping department over the past month as well. She had frequently been waking up one or even two times a night needing to be fed and rocked back to sleep. Finally I wised up. At one year old, I had the sinking feeling that what she wanted was to see me or her daddy, and that she was not waking up due to serious nutritional deprivation. So one night after getting back from DC when she started crying, I didn't get up. About ten minutes later there was silence again. Glorious, glorious silence. A few weeks later she'll still sometimes cry a bit in the night, but I haven't gotten up once and she usually sleeps 10 to 12 hours. Some nights I have even put her in bed awake and she feel asleep after crying for just a little while. Then last night I put her down awake, and she just snuggled up and fell asleep. Hallelujah! Let's just hope that I didn't completely jinx this success by writing it down.

The transitions from formula to milk and sippy cup to bottle appear to be complete. We hit a small bump with the milk, because she seemed to be very fussy in the evenings. Since we had her on soy formula, we suspected regular milk might not be sitting well with her. I tried a couple of options and found that she seemed to like Lactaid whole milk okay. By the time she was one I had her on sippy cups full-time during the day, but she was still getting a bottle right before bed. A couple of nights ago, we gave her a sippy instead. She doesn't chug it like she does the bottle, but she still seemed to fall asleep okay and she slept just as long as always. She is a full fledged walking, climbing, sippy cup using, milk drinking toddler these days. Where did my baby go?

Jeramy was gone over the weekend for the fourth weekend in a row. (He best enjoy hunting now, because soon the only thing he'll have time to hunt are the two pint sized child-beasts that will be living in our home). Somehow I manage to schedule all the fun things like vet visits when Jeramy is not going to be around to help. Nothing is quite as much fun as wrangling a 80 pound bulldog and toddler in an overflowing vet's office waiting room. All Jillian could say was "dog!" while Cujo looked around nervously. Jillian was also much more willing to stand on the scale than Cujo was too. Of course getting the bill is always the fun part when you have a high maintenance canine like a bulldog. As we had suspected he had a serious ear infection again. He got an ear cleaning. Pain reliever injection. Antibiotic injection. Ear drops. Eye ointment. Oral antibiotics. Oral pain medication. Ear cleaner. Dewormer. And we're supposed to soak each paw in Epsom salts twice a week for 15 minutes due to yeast infections. All of this is on top of his usual allergy medication. I'm about to purchase one of those daily pill containers just to keep track of the dog's meds. I sure wish I could convince my work to add him to my medical insurance.

Anyhow, I would post pictures of these good times, but I'm out of camera batteries. I meant to buy them over the weekend, but somehow between the vet and the vomit I never got a chance. Next time.