Twelve Month Update

With all of March's excitement, I forgot to put in Nora's accomplishments for her one year update:

Sharing - she's definitely into sharing everything with us now... food, toys, clothes, anything she can get her hands onto. It's pretty cool that she's sharing her food but sometimes that seems to be all she wants to do.. share her food, rather than eat it.

Shakes her head - she seems to understand what 'no' means because when asked a question or given some food, she'll refuse it by shaking her head no. I wonder if she got it from us shaking our head whenever she shared food with us. I guess I'll have to try eating more of the food she gives me to see if she'll start eating again

Kisses and Hugs - when the time's right, Nora is very willing to give us lots of hugs and kisses. Sometimes she'll smack her lips together to show a kiss, other times she'll lean forward to give kisses. It's pretty cute!

Eating - it's become a bit of a challenge this month where's she's starting to refuse the food we give her. She definitely has favourites but I don't know if she can only live on blueberries, yoghurt, pears, kiwi's, yams, toast and avocado's alone. I thought that maybe she wanted to eat what we're eating so we've been trying to give her the food (from our plates) to her and she'd show some interest, then it quickly fades away. My focus this month is to try and see how else I can get her to eat more variety or 'meals'.

Walking - she's been taking her little steps on her own but still prefers to cruise along the furniture and walk. For her birthday, her grandparents gave her a beautiful wood cart and she just loves pushing it around.

Doors - she's discovered doors and that they open & close & open & close & open & close. Slowly, she's been venturing to all the different doors to see what's behind them. Same thing goes for the kitchen cabinet drawers... she knows how to open them now.. uh oh!

Binky - she's finally getting attached to her little security blanket we call a binky. We'd always read to keep giving them something when they sleep that they can attach to, so that one day, when they need comfort, they'll recognize and feel secure with their object. Now, each time Nora wakes from her nap or sleep, we find her holding onto her binky... so hopefully soon, whenever we need to nap her outside the home, she'll recognize, find comfort and just go sleep :)

Understands more words - even though she isn't really talking, she definitely understands what we say when we talk or ask her questions. Some common things she figures out are "Where's ", "Are you done?", "Bounce (mostly for when we dance to music)", "More", "Eat", "Milk", "Naptime". There's a whole bunch and it's really fascinating to see her 'work' through what we're saying just by how she reacts or looks in the right direction, etc. She's also started signing a few things back to us - 'milk', 'more' and 'poop' (although not as consistent just yet).

Being Chased - she loves it when we try and chase her... she'll wait for us to get closer, big smiles on her face and then she'll try to 'run' away along the couch or around the ottoman... sometimes squealing in delight when we catch her.

It seems she's at a stage right now where she's just soaking in so much and learning so many new things weekly, if not every few days! Just can't seem to keep up!