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Friday, May 6, 2011

Twelve Months

Dear Samantha,

It's hard to believe that you are already a whole year old! This has been such an amazing year, watching you learn and grow at such an incredible pace. This past month has been a crazy one with you. You have learned so much so fast, and transformed almost overnight from a baby into a toddler.

You have perfected your walking skills, and now you are pretty much RUNNING everywhere you go. After just a couple weeks of walking, you figured out how to walk with your arms down at your side instead of up in the air for balance. You know how to go up and down the step to the backyard, and you somehow even know how to climb stairs at other people's houses.

You are really working on your words now. You have at least 8 words, including Mom, Dad, cat, kitty, dog, Dexter, Chloe, ball, and balloon. You definitely understand sentences, when we ask you to do something, most of the time, you respond appropriately. Right around 11 months, you and Daddy were playing, and you kicked him. Daddy asked you "Did you kick Daddy on purpose?" You clearly responded with "No." Hopefully you were telling the truth! Daddy was very excited to hear his baby girl talk to him! You still love trying to charm people with your cuteness when we are out in public. You give them the cute face, and if they look at you, you wave at them. 95% of the time, you succeed in getting everyone's attention!

Your favorite toys still seem to be balls. For your birthday you got another big ball and a ball pit full of balls! You love to carry around a big ball that is almost as big as you. Most of the time you don't really play with toys, you'd rather just walk and walk and walk, but when you do play, we can see that you are really starting to figure things out. You can put a smaller toy into a bigger one, and take it back out. You like to share, although you don't always want to give up the object you are sharing! You are very good at sharing food with Mom and Dad.

Another big change we are noticing is your attitude. Now that you are 1, it seems like almost overnight you have decided to show us your independent spirit. You whine and fuss if you don't get your way. You are VERY clingy, especially with Mommy, and if you don't get picked up and carried as soon as you start fussing for it, you start throwing a tantrum. It's hard for Mommy to get used to the idea that sometimes she has to let you get over things on your own now instead of rushing to meet your every need.

This month you have had a rough time with teething. Your two top teeth finally came through, and boy were they more painful than the bottom two were! You had just started sleeping through the night and napping like a champ, when down came those teeth. Once again, we were all up every hour all night, every night. And naps? Forget about it. Once the first one broke through, we had a few great days of happy baby again. And then came the second top tooth! Thankfully this one didn't last as long, and we just had a cranky, feverish baby for a couple of days. We are still working back up to sleeping through the night, but thankfully your naps are going great again! It sounds like the attitude and the teething are all part of having a toddler, so hopefully the 3 of us will figure out how to get through it without driving each other nuts!

Your Grammy, Pappy, NanaJo, Uncle Ben, and Aunt Brittany all came out to visit you for your first birthday. You were shy for about 5 minutes, and then you started soaking up all the attention, showing off your walking skills and making cute faces. Tomorrow we are having a party for you with even more of your family and friends! This past month and year have been so amazing. I can't wait to see how much you grow in your second year!

I love you SOOOOO much,
Love,
Mommy

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