A Letter to Elise at 13 Months

Sweet little Elise you are another month older. Time goes by so fast! You are the sweetest, most precious little girl and you make me so happy. One of the best parts of my day is when I go in your room to get you in the morning and after your nap. You get so excited and bounce up and down with the biggest smile on your face. Seeing you brightens my day and lifts my spirits every time. Your personality continues to blossom and we see new tidbits of who you will be every day. You make us laugh so hard with your silly antics and your stubborn ways. You make us smile so big with your snuggly nature, your sweet heart, and your love for your brother. You sure light up when you see him and adore watching him, especially when he's being wild! We've had a lot of rain lately and you loved watching Carter splash around in puddles and I could tell you really wanted to be in there with him. You just have to grow into your rain boots first!

You took your first steps on March 26th. You can stand on your own and can stand up from sitting on the floor all by yourself. You can walk without assistance but prefer to walk holding someone's finger for balance. The most steps you've taken in a row by yourself is probably about 8. Carter is always quick to inform everyone you are walking if we miss it. If I'm in a different room Carter will yell out, "Mommy, sissy's walking," so I can run in and see you. He is so proud of you. Most of the day all you want to do is walk around holding onto someone's hand. You've decided your Oma is your favorite for that, actually she's your favorite period right now. When you see her, you immediately crawl over to her and grab her hand. I can be walking you around and you will let go of my hand to rush over for her when you see her. It's the absolute cutest. Oma can't get much done when you are around though! You've also started climbing even more. You love to climb up onto mommy and daddy's bed, the fireplace, and your and Carter's rocker. Pretty much anything you think you may be able to climb, you hike your leg up and work at it. It cracks me up!

Walking to momma!

 

I had to use this one even though it was blurry because your face is so happy!

Most of the time you are super easy going and just go with the flow so it always catches me off guard when your stubbornness peeks through. You've gotten to where if Carter does something you don't like or someone takes a toy from you, you scream to let me know. If I take something from you, you scream at me too. You will still put things in your mouth that you shouldn't on occasion and when I try to take them out you sometimes bite down and when I look at your face it is all scrunched up and angry and I can tell you are biting down as hard as you can. It is hysterical. I've also encountered it in moments when it wasn't as funny. One day I was buckling you into your car seat and you didn't want buckled in so you screeched and then bent your head down and bit me. I told you, "No bite," in a very stern voice and you haven't done it since. We had the struggle of Carter going through a hitting phase and the whole time I kept thinking, at least he's not biting, biting would be worse. So it would just figure if you turn out to be a biter. Only time will tell!

Tippy toes!

You can put down some food. It's amazing how much you eat. At most meals you eat more than Carter. You love to eat so much that you start shaking when you see me bringing you food. If I put you in your high chair and don't immediately give you food, you freak out! We made avocado pasta sauce and you absolutely loved it. I couldn't give you enough. It was so cute to watch you suck the noodles into your mouth. Something cute you've started doing is raising your hands during a meal when you are really messy and want me to clean them off. You've started using a spoon or fork at meals. Most of the time you take one bite off your utensil and then just hold it in your hand while you use your other hand to eat. Sometimes you refill it and take another bite. It is fun to watch you feed yourself. You can be a bit of a scavenger when it comes to food since you love to eat so much. When we go on picnics you eat your food and then crawl over to check out Carter's food and see if he has anything you want. You'll also crawl over to the lunch box to see if there is anything else in it that you may like. You do the same thing with sippy cups. You can have your sippy cup right by you, but you'll go over to Carter and take his. I assume just to see if he has anything better than you or just because it's not yours and you know it. We were at a program at the art museum where they offered snacks. Carter got a bowl for himself and a bowl for you. You ate all of yours and then stood next to Carter with your hand on his shoulder, sneaking his snack in between his bites.

Laughing at Carter, of course!

You now have 6 teeth. You have your 4 middle top teeth and your 2 middle bottom teeth. The top 2 to the right and left of your middle teeth are still coming through your gums. They aren't all the way through. We have dropped down to just one nursing session first thing in the morning. I feel like you'd be okay without it, but you've been either sick or battling allergies and haven't been feeling well. You wake up anywhere from 4:30-6 am and if I nurse you, you'll go back to sleep and can sleep in without waking due to hunger. You have been so tired and need your sleep so I've been doing that to help you go get more sleep. Then I give you some milk in a sippy at breakfast. I have a feeling you will be ready to drop that one session soon and I'm a bit emotional about it, but not as emotional as I was with your brother. I think because I got to nurse you exclusively with you only having a bottle a handful of times. With your brother I had to pump and he had bottles at daycare while I worked. It was so hard. With you I'm emotional because every time I nurse you I think, this could be the last time I ever nurse a baby. Then I want to cry and hold you close and never let you go. You are just so precious when you nurse too. You look at me and hold onto my shirt with your sweet, little hand. Weaning has been pretty seamless. There was one day you were really tired and kept tugging on my shirt, looking down my shirt, and plopping your head onto my chest. I knew you wanted to nurse, but I'm keeping your nursing to just in the morning so you don't use it as a soothing mechanism. You sleep through the night other than that early morning wake up you've been having lately. If we are home for you to take a morning nap you typically take a 2 hour morning nap along with a 2 hour afternoon nap. If we are out and about in the morning you can skip your morning nap and just take a 3 hour afternoon nap. I think you would probably take a shorter morning nap if you took one every day but since you are catching up a bit on those days, you take a longer morning nap when you get one. You are pretty darn agreeable and really don't fuss at all when you skip your morning nap. I love that you can go with the flow and have your schedule tweaked here and there to work into what we need to do.

I've been impressed with how you've started to pretend play here and there. Your favorite is when Carter wants to play doggies. He is a baby doggy and so are you and I'm the mommy doggy, of course. We'll make panting noises and you love it. You crack up when you hear us make panting noises and then you do it too which always puts a huge smile on your face. You make car noises when you play with cars, just like what you hear Carter do. You have started to pretend to eat fake food. I've even seen you lick your play ice cream cones, it's the cutest! You still put a lot of stuff in your mouth but have finally slowed down a bit with it. It makes it easier to play outside and at the park because I'm not constantly pulling stuff out of your mouth anymore. With everything you've put in your mouth and I'm sure things that I've missed and you have gone on to swallow, this month was the first time I found something random in your poop when I changed your diaper. I was surprised with a sticker off of a Cutie peel. Not sure how you got that one, but I'm glad it worked its way out.

One of your favorite seated positions.

 

One of the things you do that makes me laugh the most is sit in silly positions. You like to sit with one leg kicked out in front of you and one pulled back behind you. You also squat down a lot with your feet flat and your booty just barely not touching the ground. I have no idea how you get your booty so close to the ground without actually touching the ground but you sure do it! We were playing outside on a rainy day and you were crouched down and kept your booty dry the whole time. You also like to lean in for kisses when I'm holding you. All the sudden you'll just swoop your head in and rest your forehead on my lips. You are super cuddly when you first wake up and want to be held for a while before I put you down unless I put you in your high chair to feed you. Most other times of the day you try to wiggle out of my arms while holding onto my hands so you can take off walking. When you are playing on the floor you will play for a while and then crawl over to sit in my lap. Sometimes you even just check in at home base and then take off again immediately. I love the view of you sitting in my lap because you have the sweetest little curls on the back of your head, just like your Gma. I am hoping you have curly hair. It would be so cute! You love it when I kiss your neck and you laugh so hard. You also enjoy it when I'm holding you and dip you down to where you are upside-down. I've been singing "Rise and Shine" to you. I'll lift you up in the air for "Rise and," and then drop you down so you are upside-down for "Shine and," then I bounce you up and down as I sing "And give God the glory glory." At the very end instead of "Children of the Lord," I sing "Leesey, Oh Leesey Kay."

I tried to get a picture of your curls while you were sitting in my lap.

 

Your favorite toys are still socks, board books, bath books, fabric books, and cars. I don't know exactly what it is about socks, if it's the softness or what, but you adore them. You will get them out of the dirty clothes, out of my clean baskets I'm folding, and you even pull them off your own feet so you can crawl around with them. That's your new thing is pulling one of your socks off and crawling or walking around with it in your hand. You'll randomly bite on it and pull with your hand. It's the funniest thing. My only problem with it is when you find a super yucky sock. Like one of my socks I ran in or one of Carter's socks he wore while splashing in puddles. I'd rather you didn't carry those around and randomly put them in your mouth! When you are playing with books you've started pretending to read them. You open to a page and start making noises like you are reading. It is the absolute cutest! You copy a lot of what you see your brother do. You also imitate noises you hear him make. One day he was going through DVDs at Uncie Tacos house. He would hold up a DVD and tell us something about it and then put it away. You started holding DVDs up, looking at us, and babbling. We were cracking up! Whenever Carter would brush his teeth, you'd try to take his toothbrush to brush your teeth so we bought you your own toothbrush. You love brushing your teeth and cry when I take your toothbrush away to put it up. Another favorite are the gumballs that fall from the tree in our front yard. Anytime we are outside you have one in each hand and I have to pry them out of your hands to go inside. You hold on so tight! The only way I can get you to willingly let go of one is to walk you around the yard. You will drop one to hold my hand so you can walk and that is about it. You also like the 3 smallest matryoshka dolls from our Russian nesting doll. We finally found them in your room shoved between your diaper baskets on the bottom shelf of your changing table, right where you can reach. Carter was actually the one who found them. Once he pulled them out you were quickly off crawling with them again.

 

Playing with the matryoshka dolls.

Something else funny that you do is pull dirty clothes out of your hamper and into your crib when I put you down for a nap and you don't quite feel like going to sleep yet. When I go in to get you from a nap where it took you over 10 minutes to fall asleep, I find random clothes in your crib with you. Something random about you is that you love slides, absolutely adore them, will go down them on your tummy by yourself with no help, but you hate swings. If I put you in a swing you lean all the way forward and just sit there crying. It's so sad. Something super cute is that you've started really waving. Not just back at someone who has waved at you, but understanding times we normally wave and doing it on your own. When daddy gets home at night you wave at him when you first catch a glimpse of him. You'll also wave at me when Carter is pushing you in a wagon and walks by me. When you take off up stairs away from me or leave a room during a playdate, you wave bye to everyone.

My sweet little Leesey Loo, I love you so! You are the sweetest little girl I know and bring me so much joy daily. I am so glad I get to spend my days laughing, playing, and cuddling with you. You really are everything I ever dreamed of in a daughter and I'm so proud to be your momma.

Now on to daddy:

Watching you learn to walk has been a blast! Some days you walk non-stop, other days you just want to crawl. But, you can walk and you get better every day. Watching your confidence grow with every step has been amazing.

You are a much gentler child than your brother. It is very evident when you are around the animals. They are both still timid, but you have had so much more luck in petting them than Carter ever did!

You are always so happy that it melts my heart. Always talking, laughing or smiling, especially when your brother is around. You find most things that he does hilarious, and you also get a good laugh out of just seeing Skippy.

We have been on a couple of long drives this month and you have done great on them both. You are good at entertaining yourself and usually have no problem sleeping in the car.

I look forward to the many years of watching you grow little girl, I love you!

Her goofy, booty almost touching the ground move.