What Comes With Turning One!

Millie turned 1 year old and that brought with it a whole lot of hard work!

She is right at that age where life is all about frustrations. Wanting to walk but unable to do so without holding onto hands and refusing to attempt to use a push style walker (she wont go in the sit in walker anymore, probably because it is too big and she gets stuck too often). Trying to talk and communicate but not knowing the words or understanding the responses. Trying to have an opinion and be independent but not understanding why we wont let her go into the middle of the road, walk off a big step, why she must lay down for nappy changes or why we can’t be available on demand to walk her around the house holding our hands.

In addition to this, ever since we came back from holiday in June, for one reason or another (sleep regression, teething, illness) her nighttime wakings became exhausting! When she woke in the middle of the night she refused to sleep unless given milk and would sometimes wake up twice for milk and then another once or twice on top of that for her dummy.

I wasn’t liking the Onesie years very much and felt even more exhausted than ever before, never quite recovering.

For the walking, I have to remember that as much as my back is killing me now, it wont be forever and the more experience she gets the quicker the walking will come. I’m also trying to encourage her to use the walker (without much luck) and trying to improve her confidence walking with one hand or trying to get her to stand on her own, but I know she will do it in her own time.

But it’s not all hard work! I’m loving her development with talking. She can now say:

“Ta” – thank you
”No” while wagging her finger – however she treats this as a game and purposefully does something naughty so she can say “No” and wag her finger!!! Her particular favourite is throwing her dinner on the floor!
”eya” while waving – Hiya
”dada” – baby
”Yeah” especially when clapping

and she often copies the the noises and sounds she hears, whether it is imitating her brother, our tones of voices (something to watch if they are cross voices) or just short words we say. Such as tonight I was saying “open” as I opened a draw and “close” as I closed it and she copies the rhythm and tone of what I’m saying even if not getting the words.

Other very cute things she is learning are kissing and blowing kisses. She kisses her dollies and makes the kissing noise and action on her own but doesn’t kiss people yet. I did kind of teach her to blow kisses the other day. She kissed her hand then pointed at me . She pretends to read books and talk on the phone too. Just adorable!

It is so true when ‘they’ say children are sponges – the rate of learning at this age is incredible and I wish I could learn new things half as quickly (and I consider myself a fast learner!).

I start work next week and I go from being with her pretty much 24/7 (well except when she is sleeping) to handing her over to someone else to look after her from 8 until gone 6 (at least). Work is so the right thing for me but now I really appreciate that extra 6 months I had with Callum as there are so many firsts I’m going to miss and, yes, I’m gonna miss her like a crazy person!