Twelve months (aka a year old!)

This post is coming a bit late because I had to reschedule Eleanor's one year appointment at the doctor and I wanted to include her growth stats, but the pictures were from the week of her birthday. Speaking of her size...Eleanor is 29.25 inches long (50th percentile and 44% of the way to my adult height), weighs twenty pounds, (28th percentile), and her head circumference is 17.75 inches (48th percentile).

This last month with Eleanor has been huge for communication. She began signing actual signs right after she turned 11 months. She now can sign for milk whenever she wants it and sign for more when she wants more of something. She also lets us know whenever she is "all done." She started using her pointing to tell me exactly what she wants - for example, at dinner she will point at one thing on the plate and if I offer her something she wasn't pointing it, she waves her hands to indicate "no." She imitates sounds much better than before. Her first words after "dog" were "good girl," then "bubble," then "hi." I'm starting to distrust that she knows what "dog" means though, as when we were in California and North Carolina, she also called cats "dog" and seagulls "dog." Eleanor also likes to drop things on the floor and then say, "uh oh."

This month has also been big in the mobility arena. She was taking steps at 10 months and basically the day she hit 11 months she began doing a lot more walking. Now that she has been walking for over a month, crawling is a thing of the past. We almost never see her crawling anymore. I wasn't sure what to expect when she started walking because most people told me, "I wouldn't wish an early walker on anyone," or "You'll wish for the days of crawling again once she starts walking," but I love it. She loves it. She's more content now that she can move and communicate and she has more freedom. Yes we have to be more careful, but we don't have any stairs in our house and our floor plan is fairly open so I can generally keep an eye on her no matter what we're doing. It has been a good change for us.

Eleanor also loves dancing, particularly to Sesame Street. She has been dancing for a couple months, but she has just really taken off with her moves this past month. She also seems to be very interested in music and instruments.

She is starting to sort things. With assistance, she will put shape blocks through the appropriate shape holes. We are starting to transition to one nap a day, but she still most frequently takes two. She has six teeth (top four incisors and bottom central incisors) and despite my original thinking that gummy smiles are the best, her smile is still super adorable with teeth. (Side note: she broke her lateral incisors this week, so she actually has eight now, but she didn't have these on her birthday.)

Eleanor at one, two, three, four, five, six, seven, eight, nine, ten, and eleven months.