Eleanor at 13 Months

As of this morning, Eleanor now weighs 18 lbs 4.5oz, has a head circumference of 17 1/2" and is 29.13" tall.  

Eleanor has been VERY needy lately. Shes fine as long as I'm not in the room, but the moment she spots me she crawls over as fast as she can and cries to be picked up. In the evening its much worse and I pretty much have to either hold her constantly (not easy when I am trying to make dinner), or sneak around the house to avoid being seen by her. I feel like I need to be a ninja around here to get anything done! I don't remember Will being this needy, but I'm sure he went through this stage as well. I know I should embrace it and not complain, but its exhausting and annoying most times. Especially since she doesn't REALLY want to be held. She just doesn't want to be on the floor either. Babies!

 Nora is still SUCH a good little eater. I don't know where she puts it all, since shes not really gaining much weight these days, but she almost always eats everything I give her and more. It is clear that she has specific food preference though and will eat the foods I give her in order of her most to least preferred food. So I am always curious to watch the order in which she she eats so that I know what her favorite foods of the week are. This week her favorite foods are meatballs and oranges and her least favorite is hot dog. When she is done eating, she will clear her tray and then start whining to get down. When I ask her if she wants to get down, she will lift her arms up and stretch them out to be, begging me to pick her up. 


Nora's sleeping and breast feeding have been SO much better lately. She is taking 4-6 long feeds a day on top of breakfast, lunch and dinner and suddenly (finally) seems to enjoy being at the breast. This is the first time since she was born that she will stay latched for longer than 5 minutes (lately its been 6-10 minutes - unheard of!) and she will actually empty whatever side she is on. Shes pretty much never done that! Also she is less distracted and I can now finally feed her places other than her nursery without fear that she will unlatch and look around, just after eliciting let down. Will had totally given up nursing by this point so I am so grateful and glad that she remains interested. She is also sleeping through the night every night and has been for about a month and a half now. That took long enough! Ive also been able to finally cut out the dream feed and the nightly bottle (she will sleep all night with less milk in her belly so the needing to use the bottle to give her a large amount of milk, is no longer necessary). We have stopped all bottles in fact (unless Michael puts her down) and thats been nice to not have to deal with the hassles of bottle feeding. So all in all, things are going pretty well and it seems like her eating and sleeping routines are the least complicated parts of my day! I never thought I would say that!

 
Her two favorite games are the poke game and peekaboo. The poke game is where we spot each other from across the room. She will point her little index finger at me and I point back at her, and then I run over to her and poke her finger with my finger. It always makes her giggle and she loves it! Peekaboo is also a favorite. Really I think she just likes to have blankets over her head. We keep some soft blankets in the car to keep the kids warm on chilly days, and her favorite thing to do after getting strapped in, is to put the blanket over her head and giggle. Sometimes she'll play peekaboo but other times she just keeps the blanket on her head for the whole drive!  


Shes getting soooo close to walking these days. Shes taken to standing up all by herself, in the middle of a room, for up to 30 seconds at a time, then causally lowering herself back down and crawling away. She has also taken her first steps from that same position, but she just doesn't quite have the confidence to walk yet. She clearly has the necessary balance and strength (she can even balance on unstable places like our bed, the couch and in the bath tub, and shes been cruising assisted for a couple of months now), she just has to make up her mind to do it. I am SO ready for her to walk too. Crawling is such a pain in the neck. She is forever eating strange things off the floor/ground, her clothes always get filthy and she wears holes in her socks, shoes and knees of her pants. Plus I think she and Will are going to have a ball chasing each other around the house this winter! 


Nora is a fun, vivacious, opinionated little girl that at turns makes me sigh with exasperation and chuckle with delight. Shes very social and intelligent and seems to be right on track developmentally. That alone is something to be extremely grateful for! Its so fun watching her personality develop by the day and I am so looking forward to the milestones that this next year will bring!