Happy Happy Birthday Baby

Happy birthday, sweetheart. You are loved and cherished beyond imagination. You have brought me and your daddy such joy this past year. We cannot wait to see what's in store for us.

I am so lucky to be your mommy.

Our girl, the genius

Yes, I realize I'm a bit biased. And maybe she is not quite the level of genius, but she is definitely smart. She's been alert since day one, and now I realize what she's been up to all this time.

She's been quietly observing us, every day, and filing all she sees and hears away into her brain, knowing that one day she would be able to imitate us. That time has come.

She takes keys and tries to put them in the door. She takes cloth diapers and "folds" them. She takes clothes out of one drawer and puts them in another one.

The one thing that blows my mind is something that most babies don't do at this age.

She pretends.

She pretends to eat something from an empty spoon and smacks her lips like she's really enjoying it. Then she'll scoop the spoon into an empty bowl and hand you the (still empty) spoon for you to enjoy. Darren and I have enjoyed plenty of air, smacking our lips like it was lobster. Once she even held the spoon to Kody!

She is one silly little genius.

Tugaloo State Park

I was totally dreading it, but we finally took Kora camping for the first time. Not that I hate camping. I love it. But the thought of taking a newly-walking, poorly-sleeping, almost-one-year-old on a camping trip just made me exhausted. And if that isn't enough activity, we invited our friends who have a two-year old boy along! Not sure what I was smoking when I agreed to this.

However. I have to say the trip far exceeded my expectations. We went hiking, played in the lake, played in the playground, ate good food. We even had a (gasp!) campfire despite the obvious danger to our toddling little ones. After the kiddos went to sleep the adults finished off a couple of bottles of wine and topped everything up with some nice smoky s'mores.

That's a pretty large bass if you compare it to Kora

Speaking of sleep, Kora had one of her best nights that night! I swear I would set up a tent in the backyard and sleep out there every night if I thought she would keep that up.

Hamming it up for the photo

Posing after dinner

Blowing bubbles with Andrew and his dad

Our McMansion Tent

Our campsite

Our evenings

Kora likes to spend her evenings perfecting her new skills. On this night, it was walking. With a practice throw at the end.

Busy night September 21, 2010 from Minh-An Pence on Vimeo.

Did a month already fly by? Again?

Turns out time goes by faster when you have a kid. Unless you're trying to put the kid to sleep, at 3AM, in which case it drags on and on.

Which brings me to Kora's sleep. Or sometimes lack of it. That girl definitely keeps us on our toes. For the past month she has been working on walking on her own, and thank goodness she got that down, so her sleep has resumed to crappy. Note: crappy is a step up from what it's been...insanely awful.

There were a couple of nights where she woke up between 2 and 3 and just wanted to play and talk, and it would take about an hour or more to put her back to sleep. She would just be sitting there in complete darkness chatting away about her day (I can only assume) and trying to crawl off the bed.

But...this girl can walk! Pretty well! I'll upload some videos of her soon. She has even started trying to run, which is not so good since she usually ends up falling, but it is crazy to watch!

She now has 7 teeth and the 8th one will pop out any day now.

Some of the things she loves right now:

• Playing with water, wherever she is (fountain, bathtub, pool, Kody's water bowl).
• Playing outside where she does things like collect acorns and rocks (At least now she doesn't immediately just put them in her mouth.)
• Reading books and magazines
• Patting Kody
• Eating
• Throwing a ball
• Watching birds and insects
• Nursing (yes, she is a definitely a booby girl)
• Hanging upside down
• Playing in the pantry
• Riding in her carseat (ha ha! just kidding!)

Just one more month and she'll be ONE YEAR OLD. How did this happen so quickly?? Next thing you know she'll be heading off to Georgia Tech (or her safety school, UVA).

Some fun videos!

You've been patient, I know. Here's what you've been waiting for!

Kora having a grand old time with her puppy Sadie

Kora demonstrating the proper way to eat pho noodles

Kora pushing her stroller around the house with Daddy

Kora reading her ASPCA magazine (American Society for the Prevention of Cruelty of Animals). She likes it because it has many pictures of cats and dogs.

Swimming in our friends' pool. This was her first time in a pool

Kora's "schedule"

Somewhere between 6 and 9 months of age, most babies tend to settle themselves into a '2-3-4' daily schedule. This means that a baby will take a morning nap about 2 hours after waking up for the day, then will take the afternoon nap about 3 hours after waking up from the first nap. Finally, the baby will go to bed for the night about 4 hours after waking up from the afternoon nap.

Kora pretty much has put herself on this schedule. She wakes up around 7:30AM, goes down for her nap between 9:30 and 10 and wakes up around 11ish. She then goes down for her afternoon nap sometime between 2 and 2:30, and sleeps for about an hour. She then goes to bed around 8:30. So, more or less, we know her schedule.

What we don't talk about normally, is her nighttime 'schedule'. She is kind of on a '3-2-1' schedule. This means she sleeps her longest stretch first - 3 whole hours. Then her second stretch is about 2 hours, and finally she wakes up about every hour until 7:30 when she's up for the day. This is one of the reasons why I get so irritated when people ask, "is she sleeping through the night?". No. She's not. Well, actually she kind of is. It's not like she's partying in the middle of the night. She wakes up to pee and to nurse. But for the most part, she stays asleep.

Many people talk about 'training' their babies to sleep by letting them cry. They'll talk about how babies needing to learn how to 'self-soothe' and fall asleep on their own. Yes, I realize that by enduring my baby cry her eyes out for a few nights, she may learn how to fall asleep on her own. But I don't. I'm not going to write about the research done that shows it harms babies. Another blog has a wonderful post about this already. What I will write about is that there is a very good reason why breastfeeding puts both babies and mamas to sleep. It is natural mammalian act. Babies are not meant to sleep through the night (although some lucky moms have babies that do quite early in life). As sleep-deprived as I am, I will not rush my baby into this. My convenience will not trump her development. There will be a day when I look back on this time and realize that my baby doesn't need me in the middle of the night anymore, doesn't need my cuddles and kisses, doesn't need my milk. I do not want to look back with regret that I didn't give her enough when she needed it.