But anyway, that's neither here nor there. Now that Daphne is walking and has passed the one-year mark, she's officially a budding toddler. We had a small, fun, rock star-themed party to celebrate her birthday a couple of weeks ago, during which she enjoyed her first cupcakey goodness. And, like her mama, she seems to be a fan of sweet, high-fat food. Hooray!
Aw, man, now I want a cupcake...
If you want to read more about the few crafty shenanigans I managed to pull off leading up to and on the day of her party, check out my other blog - paper goods here; other party details here.
Otherwise, Daphne's twelfth month involved a sleep regression - more about that in a sec - and a lot of snot. She has basically had either one long cold or 3 or 4 separate colds that have affected her back-to-back. She has, for the most part, rolled with it, but last week she was home from what would have been her fifth and sixth days of daycare because her six-week congestion turned into an ear infection (more on the daycare transition in another post).
We also weathered her worst stretch of sleep since the newborn stage. Right after the 11-month mark her naps, never all that great to begin with (I can usually count on one decent nap out of her but getting two has always been a bit of a challenge...just like her brother!), totally fell apart. I didn't think much of it because, again, she has never been an amazing napper. Even on good days, she only sleeps about 2 1/2 hours total between two naps, when I can get that many out of her. Part of this is not her fault. Her afternoon nap is interrupted most days by the fact that we have to pick up Elias at 3, meaning she needs to be up and ready to go around 2:30. I'm hoping once she transitions to one nap, this will no longer be an issue since I can put her down a little earlier. As it is, if she takes a decent morning nap, she's not really ready for an afternoon nap until about 2, and assuming she falls right to sleep, 30 minutes just doesn't cut it.
(I know these sleep shots must seem contradictory but the reason she's sleeping in this very photogenic way during this stage is because she wasn't sleeping so well in her crib!)
So, anyway, I didn't give naps much thought. But then she started fighting bedtime. Again, not a big deal so long as she sleeps through the night. A couple of days of that and she started waking up in the middle of the night for mysterious reasons. The horror! I can handle nap and bedtime shenanigans but once you get used to sleeping through the night again, barring the occasional illness that disrupts nighttime sleep, it is really tough to deal with a stretch of bad nights. Especially when you don't know why it's happening or how long it will last. I even took her to the pediatrician after a couple of weeks thinking she might then have an ear infection since the sleep regression coincided with the congestion. Her ears were clear at the time. It may have been teething, perhaps something to do with her newfound ability to function as a biped (more below), or maybe there was really no rhyme or reason at all. I hate this expression because who wants to be told they may have no control over the situation but in this case it was definitely one of those "this too shall pass" things. It passed and I'm grateful for that.
Other than sleep and snot, the big news since her 11-month update is that she can walk! She started taking a few steps at a time right after the 11-month mark and each week she's made so much progress, walking a little further in the living room, for example, walking - not crawling - when we'd put shoes on her and take her outside, up to now, at almost 13 months, she's almost always walking. She still falls back on her bottom quite often but she rarely crawls anymore. It's pretty awesome, and I don't mean that sarcastically. On the one hand, yes, it did require some frantic baby-proofing because she can get to things a bit quicker and her center of gravity is now a bit higher. But for the most part, as with Elias at this stage (he took his first steps a little closer to his first birthday), I'll take a walker over a crawler any day. My back is already starting to recover from the endless schlepping of the first year.
And hand-in-hand with increased upright mobility seems to be a decrease in the amount of stuff she puts in her mouth. She is still a very "mouthy" kid and I still find I have to watch her like a hawk when we're at a playground, for example, but it seems to be getting a little better. More bothersome than that, though, is when she insists on walking around with something in her mouth.
This is another way little sister is quite different from her big brother. I was definitely not worrying about Elias putting small objects in his mouth nearly this much at this age. And Elias had this great combination of being both fairly coordinated for his age but also quite cautious.
Daphne is neither.
Actually, I'm honestly not sure how her coordination compares to other babies/toddlers at this age, but she is definitely a bit of a daredevil.
Parental frustrations aside, you can tell she's pretty pleased with her newfound independence and her transition from infant to toddler.
She continues to be a pretty happy girl. She gives me grief over just about any transition and is less content than usual to be in the car seat, stroller, or shopping cart, but we manage to get a few things done each week, get mama a little bit of exercise while we otherwise hang out at home or at music class and play. More on the transition to daycare in our next post. And I've been working on a long, transition-to-Kindergarten, Elias-centric post so stay tuned for those updates soon!
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