The BIG Birthday Month

We celebrated Elizabeth’s birthday on her birthday (not always possible!) with lots of friends at our local Skyline Neighborhood Park.  We had beautiful weather, thankfully, which can always be iffy in the month of October.  A Colorado October can bring 80’s or snow and sometimes just days apart.  We were so happy to share this special day with some of Elizabeth’s closest friends and some new ones we are hoping to get to know better.  She had Finley, Allison, Liam, Noalea, Bryce, Charlie, and Ella there to celebrate her Big 1st Birthday with her.  Not to mention moms and dads, Liam’s brother David, and our neighbor Chris.  It ended up being a big crowd when I was thinking that it would be a small gathering!  The park had swings and a playground for the kids to enjoy and we brought lots of toys for them to share.  It was very fun.  Elizabeth started to do this silly “monkey-crawl” on her hands and feet with her butt high when I realized it was because the woodchips weren’t too comfortable to actually crawl on.  She also started practicing crawling down over a curb that led into the playground area.

Elizabeth seemed a little overwhelmed with the size of her cake!

Finley was a big help blowing out the candles on the cake and opening gifts.  Elizabeth is lucky to have an older friend (Finley is 4) to teach her these important things!

Elizabeth had her 12-month doctor visit on October 3rd.  We had hoped she would’ve been walking to show the doctor that she could…but those first big steps came just a couple of days after the appointment.

Her push-behind car was a big help in getting her comfortable on her two feet. 

On nice days we started to leave our sliding glass door open and let Elizabeth choose whether she wanted to play inside or outside on the balcony.  She was thrilled to have the choice, and usually took her books and toys outside.  Here was the first day (Oct 3rd) we started this new routine…a little happy, isn’t she?

Her first solo steps at home happened with a few tentative steps towards Andy on Oct 4th.  What a big day that was!!  At least Andy got to witness that moment.  Then on Oct 7th, she took about 10 steps across an open room towards ME!  yea!  The look on her face was priceless:  a combination of joy, pride, and concentration.

A book I’ve started reading describes toddlers as “explorers and scientists” as they learn about everything around them.  So true.  Elizabeth finds such wonder in things like unzipping bags and removing items.  But finally she has started to put things back in their place (or SOME place) and zippers her diaper bag shut again.  She could spend 10-20 minutes repeating the same actions over and over again.  Other new discoveries are simple things like flipping a light switch (10/8); dancing to (uggh) country music or a song on her new toy Violet (10/8); saying a new word “doll” for her toy dolly (10/5); or crawling in, out, and over things.  I almost got rid of her Bumbo seat because she’d get her legs stuck in it as a baby, but now she fits and loves crawling in and out of it from all angles.  She also loves to explore the fridge (racing to it anytime she hears the door open) and the dishwasher (even crawling up onto the open door if we aren’t fast enough to stop her).

She also loves to squeeze in between the wall and the refrigerator.  Can’t imagine what would happen if we ever let her reach the water shut-off behind the fridge, though!

She still enjoys her bike rides.  We got on our bikes again on October 9th.  But the helmet is not always on.  She started to pull on it because it would slip down over her eyes.  I’m not comfortable tightening her helmet because I’m afraid of crushing her little big head, but too loose isn’t good either.  Hopefully I can get it right.

On  October 10th, she got her 6th tooth.  The 7th one came in on October 24th.  So she now has 4 on top, and three on bottom.

She is becoming much more independent.  She now wants to feed herself with her spoon.  So I hold one to help make sure she actually gets some food in her belly, and she holds hers and, basically, makes a mess.  That started around the 17th, and on the 22nd she started to drink from a tumbler.  Surprisingly, that hasn’t been so messy.

On October 22nd we finally got to the Pumpkin Patch.  I had been wanting to get some 1-yr photos of her surrounded by pumpkins.  Rock Creek Farms was the recommended place to go.  Miles and miles of pumpkins.  We’ve never been to a real pumpkin farm like this.  Our intention was just to go for the photos, but of course we left with pumpkins, pumpkin bread, pumpkin cookies and lots of smiles.

Considering all of the pumpkin vines and thorny plants in the pumpkin fields, Elizabeth did surprisingly well with her new legs.  True, the vines tripped her up most of the time and she wanted to grab every thorny plant she saw, but we left injury-free.

It was a pretty setting with the mountains in the back.

Then she got to pet her second horse…a huge Clydesdale that pulled the wagon for hay rides.

And she got to run around the hay bale maze.

Our social butterfly has a natural ability to make friends quickly.

And we got to see some farm animals in the petting zoo.  Elizabeth got worried that these little piggies were going to bite her little piggies – she pulled her feet back quickly when she thought they got too close.  Actually, she kept calling them “dog”.

On October 23rd she started putting her steps together a little faster.  The “running” has begun.  I didn’t realize how quickly little girls could run until I took her shopping at a child consignment shop.  She showed me her running legs that day.  Then she even started “hiding”!  I’d find her standing at the end of an end cap with her face hidden in a bunch of hats and scarves giggling.  I couldn’t believe my little girl had started to play hide-and-seek on me!  She is just as silly at home, too.  She does a “sneak-attack” on us by approaching us from behind silently and then she roars as she grabs at us with both hands.  She has also begun hiding behind the glider and peeking from underneath encouraging us to chase her with a gleam in those big blue eyes of hers.

Our sign-language class is definitely helping our communication.  On October 27th she began signing “Eat”, saying “Eat”, and all while pointing to her highchair.  I think she doubted my ability to understand her so she tripled up on the ways to ‘talk’ to me.  She’s been in the ‘pointing stage’, too, to tell me what she wants":  water glass, bananas, etc.  She still says “baby” and “dog” on a daily basis.  Pretty much anything with four legs is a “dog” and anyone under the age of 11 is a “baby”.  She understands a lot of what I say to her.  I’m really going to have to start watching what and how I say things now.  If I ask her “want to eat?” she goes to her highchair; “want milk/are you sleepy?”, she goes to the glider and/or points to crib; “want bath?” or “let’s go brush our teeth” and she goes to her bathroom.  I’m lovin’ it and I think she is too – she likes to be part of the decision-making I think.

This month we switched from the soft silicone “finger” toothbrush to a real kid toothbrush.  She likes having her teeth brushed – but I think it’s because she likes to suck the toothpaste off of the brush.  That’s ok with me.  She likes it so much that she’ll even ‘remind’ us that she needs her teeth brushed at night by pointing to her toothbrush.

And here’s what I mean by the weather here in October…

October 24th:  Beatiful fall colors and interesting clouds

October 27th:  Snow covered trees still in their fall dress. 

We lost lots of branches and trees in this storm due to all of that extra weight.  It reminded us of our trip to Black Hills, SD when an October storm stranded us in our RV.  While the city employees fixed power lines and uprighted power poles, we went around the city RV park and shook snow off of the trees.  The loud gunshots of breaking branches was too much to bear and we felt we had to do something to help save the ones we could.  But I don’t know a prettier sight than the mix of brilliant golds and reds covered in a blanket of white snow.

Then the month ended with our Halloween celebration.  We found the most adorable Peacock costume for her.  Knowing how much she NEEDS to see what is behind her, I thought I would get her dressed early so we could play in the house with her costume on and let her look at herself in the mirror.  I thought she’d be used to the costume by now since Teddy has worn it and it has been sitting in her room for a month.

Things didn’t start out too well…

The costume was a little back-heavy and made walking and standing a little challenging in the beginning.  But she is strong and persistent.

We took her to Boo at the Zoo.  All the kids were dressed up and then there were treat stations all around.  Most of the lines for treats were too long for us to bother with, but we had a great time anyway.

Taking a break with the bears.

A zoo employee told us that outside of the real peacocks, there was only one other peacock he saw.  She caught a lot of eyes and got lots of oohhs and aahs that day.  She just loves being the center of attention, though.  Uh oh (for us).

I have a couple of videos in the Picasa Webalbums of her strutting her stuff at the zoo.  We almost had an incident with a real peacock (not on camera).  The peacock was being chased by another child and he turned to Elizabeth for help!  Once he got close enough he realized that she wasn’t real and quickly sped away.  Pretty funny.

Then we took her to our church for another Halloween adventure.

They set up a room of doors (Trick or Treat Street) that kids could knock on and when someone answered, you’d get candy.  It was creative and sweet.  A safe way for us to show her a little more of the holiday.

Lots more pictures and videos from the whole month can be found on our October WebAlbums.  Enjoy.

It’s been a busy month for Elizabeth and I’m under the impression that her explorations and experimentations are just beginning.  We are so lucky that she has such a sweet, fun and loving personality.