Abbie Rose is 13 months old!!

On Father’s Day, Abbie turned 13 months old.(This is Brittney, for those of you who wanted to know what she looks like.  Abbie REALLY likes Brittney, probably because she sees Brittney more than she sees Mark at times…)

Here are her 13 mo. stats:

• She wears size 3 diapers.
• She wears mostly 12 mo. clothes, with a few 18 mo. thrown in the mix.
• She’s still only “walking” on her knees.  She’s not up on her feet yet.
• She can say about 8-10 words, and she tries to repeat almost anything you say.
• She knows about 15 signs, and uses them frequently.
• She goes to bed around 9pm and gets up around 9am and is consistently sleeping through the night and rarely cries when we put her to bed, even if she’s awake.  (I NEVER thought I’d actually be able to say that…)  She takes a 1-2 hr nap every day.
• She LOVES being outside or out and about and she likes to get dirty.
• She loves to dance and she climbs on just about anything she can.
• The kid could live on cheese.  She still LOVES cheese.  And peaches.  She’d eat 3 peaches at a time if I let her, but I don’t.
• She has 7 teeth and I think she might be getting a few molars.

The major change this month, is that I stopped breastfeeding her on her 13 month birthday.  I have such mixed emotions about this and mostly it makes me sad because it’s just another sign that she’s not a baby any more.  But I finally came to the realization that she’s not going to be a baby anymore whether I nurse her or not.  She was slowly weaning herself anyway, and she didn’t ever want to sit still long enough to make nursing worth it, so we stopped.  Plus I’m sick  again, for about the 10th time since we’ve been here, and I wanted to load up on meds (which would pass through milk), so I took that as a sign from God that it was time to stop.  So it’s bittersweet to stop nursing her, but I guess we’re both ready for a new phase.  She’s still getting bottles of organic whole milk and she’ll get that until she’s at least 2.

Abbie is such a joy to be around.  She’s such a happy little girl, for the most part, and loves getting in to everything and making big messes.  If she does something she knows she’s not supposed to do, she’ll shake her head no while she’s doing it, which cracks me up.  I just can’t imagine our lives without this little thing in it.  She gave us a huge run for our money the first 6-8 months of her life, but now I can honestly say being her parent is pretty easy.  (Knock on wood.)  I’m not really in any hurry for her to walk because I know that’ll bring a whole new ball game to the table.  I like things the way they are for right now.