Natalie: Twelve Months
This girl is one year old! I feel like most of this year has been kind of a blur. We’re always so busy and life seems so much more hectic when you have more than one kid.
This little love of mine is just the most precious thing and I couldn’t be more obsessed with her! We went to a baseball game on her birthday and then gave her our gifts and of course, had cake.
We had a little family party for her later in the week. It always makes me feel a little sad that my family can’t be a part of their birthday parties since they all live on the east coast, but Natalie still had a great time. She doesn’t seem to love cake all that much, but she does enjoy mashing it up into millions of crumbs and smashing the frosting all over the place!
She started walking about a week before she turned 1. It was like she just got up one day and started walking and within an hour, she was basically running. She loves this new skill and her favorite thing to do is to go outside and just walk, walk, and walk.
With her new freedom though, she gets SUUUUUUPER mad when we have to redirect her like if she starts walking towards the street or in the opposite direction we need to go. She has a downright tantrum crying and kicking and swatting at us. She is so stubborn!
Natalie has also started saying, “Hi!” and waving when we get her up from naps or when I come home from work. She says ‘mama’ quite a bit and although sometimes it seems very purposeful and in the right context, sometimes I’m not sure. She does a ton of babbling though. Madeline was a late-talker and didn’t really start talking until she was about 19 months old so we aren’t stressed about it now.
This love chunk is an eating champ. She can be picky about some things, but she loves to eat! She takes her sweet time too. Meals can easily take an hour with her.
We’ve dropped formula (which is such a relief financially!) and have been offering whole milk instead. At first, she didn’t really seem to like it very much, but she will typically drink at least a morning and nighttime bottle of it. During the day, she really just drinks water from sippy or straw cups. Now that she’s been drinking milk more willingly, I’m going to work on dropping the bottles and just using sippy cups.
She’s mostly down to just one nap a day. On the days Maddie goes to preschool though, she often takes two since she gets woken up early to pick up big sister.
We still haven’t put the girls in the same bedroom. Maddie has been getting up a lot in the night lately and makes so much noise. I know a lot of people say they learn to block out noise from their sibling, but Natalie sleeps so well, we don’t want to mess it up. Maddie keeps asking though when sister is going to start sleeping in her room so I’m hoping to make the change this summer while Maddie is out of school.
I cannot believe that I have two toddlers now! Though I may not do monthly updates from this point forward, I would still like to post some life updates on the blog every so often. This is a blog, after all! I would love to know which type of posts you all would like to see though so feel free to drop some feedback in the comments!
2 Comments on “Natalie: Twelve Months”
She is so adorable! I’ll also try the whole milk with my 14-month old toddler(she only has formula).
Thanks, Huizhen! Yes, give it a try. So much cheaper! It might take a few weeks for her to adjust to the new taste.