Morgan is almost 14 months old and, as usual, I cannot believe it. Let's see...where did I leave off in my last post? Ah, yes, Morgan was still on soy formula, after a losing battle with whole milk. Well, we switched her over to soy milk without a problem. She didn't even notice or protest the switch in bottle contents. The problem for us is not switching from soy formula to soy milk, but from bottle to sippy cup. Morgan will drink water or juice from a sippy cup just fine. If I put milk in one, she looks at me like I have a frog on my head (obscure Joaquin Phoenix reference). She'll throw the cup on the ground and point to her bottles. Put the bottles away, you say? Well, then she points to where the bottles used to be. She knows what she wants and she wants it NOW! It's funny how indignant she can get, at such a young age. She just has a sweet, sweet love affair going on with her bottles. I must admit, that I am not too eager to pitch them in the trash. I love snuggling her when she drinks (I don't snuggle her for all her bottles.) She has about 3-4 bottles a day and I'm back to giving her milk before her naps. I know, I know...it just works so well for us, right now. I give her a bottle, maybe read her a book or two, and then I rock her to sleep.
I swear, lately, it's like I'm doing everything "wrong," but she is sleeping so much better. I think it's because we went through sleep training at 8 months and she learned how to self-soothe, so now me giving her a bottle and rocking her doesn't mess up her sleep. Somewhere along the way, I got back to doing the things that used to have her waking up every 1-2 hours, but now she sleeps through the night. I enjoy my time rocking her...holding onto my "little baby" as long as I can.
This is a recent phenomenon, though. For a while, she was waking up once a night, "needing" milk. It was right after the beginning of the year, that she stopped needing a bottle during the night. She would just cry once or twice in her sleep (when turning over, getting comfortable again) and then continue sleeping. Now, she pretty much sleeps soundly all night. She is an early riser, though. She's up by 6:00/6:30, most mornings. Some mornings, it's more like 5:30, but we let her fuss on and off until 6:00. She doesn't cry, she just sort of "calls us" in her sleep. I check the monitor and she's not really awake, but saying, "hey, I'm waking up here...is it time to get up?" We don't answer that question until at least 6:00 a.m.
She started taking her first steps a couple of weeks after her first birthday. She's nearing 14 months and can now walk all around the house, but she still needs to pull up on something, even if it's just the wall, to get to a standing position. She hasn't quite figured out how to get up off the floor. That's fine by me...take it easy, baby!
She's growing up so much, lately, seeming like quite the little person. She makes funny facial expressions and she laughs more, spontaneously. My picture taking has dropped, as I'm so busy chasing her around and don't seem to be able to snap as many shots. I do still take videos, when I have the chance.
Here's one picture I managed to take, while she was playing under the kitchen table:
