I have become a lazy blogger, haven't I? Didn't mean for that to happen; sorry. But you can see why I have to spend more time in the real world these days, and why I want to. Tessa is really just a sweetie and a half. We've retired many of the baby things around here. No more teeny bathtub, no more bottles in the cupboard, the crib mattress went down a click, the 9-month and smaller sized clothes were donated and the 12-month ones appeared, breastfeeding is on its way out. We are fresh out of babies over here.
Tessa is still a very little girl, off the charts for height and weight still but creeping up toward them. She has entered the squiggle phase of growing up, where being confined (in arms or high chair or for a diaper change) seems intolerable. "I need to be independently wiggling!" She is brave enough now to walk while holding only one hand, but still very much prefers to crawl. She is more tolerant of books now; she doesn't scream and throw the book away the second we sit down. One day I even got through two before she squiggle-wiggled away to find something more interesting. We are in process of taking away her morning nap. I think she still does much better when she sleeps a little, but this week has seen not even one successful morning snooze. She is over one-year-old however, and it's nice to not be tied to the house (with Maggie) until 9:30 every day.
Weaning is clipping right along. Tess has had no problem transitioning to a cup or to cow's milk. It's her absolute favorite part of every meal. Often we have to put the cup away for the first half of dinner so she'll actually eat something before chugging down the milk. Her body adjusted without complaint too. None of the scalding and lacing with bananas that we had to do with Maggie. Right now we're at two breastfeedings a day, first thing in the morning and right after nap time. Next week we'll work on the afternoon guy and then it's just a hop skip and a jump to me drinking copiously and using recreational drugs! (Just kidding.)
Eating is still posing a bit of a challenge. She's very picky about certain things -- no white cheese, only yellow; no overly ripe avocados; no green vegetables or any longer carrots or prunes; no sourdough bread, but any other glutenous fare is a go, no meat or beans unless they're pureed and come with either fruit or bread. We have come up with several tricks, like ketchup and teriyaki sauce. And putting a little puff at the bottom of the fork so it's what she sees coming toward her mouth. I know she's barely one and we have to give her a little bit of a break, but babe cannot live on fruit alone!
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