Katie's main milestone from her twelfth month was that very popular and hotly controversial one in ParentingWorld - sleeping through the night. There is a longer story as to how this came to be (a somewhat timely one, since I've once again been embroiled in debate with another blogger over whether any method of dealing with sleep problems that involves letting your child cry for even a few minutes is a high-risk strategy to be avoided if at all possible or whether there might, perhaps, be circumstances in which it's a valid and reasonable approach), but, in the interests of getting this post up some time before the thirteen-month update is due, I shall leave the full story to a subsequent post and constrain myself, at this point, to merely reporting this happy state of affairs.
She isn't yet walking, but she can stand for several seconds at a time (in fact, she's been able to do that for some time, so I think strictly speaking it belongs in a previous month's post, but what the hell). She can climb stairs. (We don't often let her, but she can.)
She's started hugging soft toys. This is terribly sweet to see, even if her next action generally involves dangling them upside down or grabbing their eyes. It's nice to finally have some use for the drawerful of soft toys that Jamie was given but never showed the slightest interest in.
She had her first birthday party. We had a joint party for her and Jamie, on the Sunday in between their birthdays. Barry was planning to stack their cakes in a two-tier system, but that didn't look as though it was going to work all that well and in the end we carried them in separately. Since she's too young to blow candles out, he found one of those mini-firework candles. Jamie was most impressed by this: "I had four candles that were fire," he told us, "and Katie had one candle that was a firework." Katie, unfortunately, had a rotten cold, which somewhat hampered her enthusiasm for the day, but she seems quite pleased with her presents (although it turned out that what she really really wanted more than anything else was an old comb. She was so enamoured with Barry's mother's comb that she insisted on carrying it up to the bath with her and howled when I finally insisted on removing it from her clenched fist just before putting her in her cot.)
Other than that, she really hasn't done much of note this month. She's probably gathering her energies for storming the second year of life.
So, how quickly a year goes. So sorry to have missed your special day. Love from Granny C who is now doting on her third continent and about to dote on her fourth. Can hardly wait to see you all. XXC
Posted by: Granny Constance | Friday, December 05, 2008 at 23:22
So, how quickly a year goes. So sorry to have missed your special day. Love from Granny C who is now doting on her third continent and about to dote on her fourth. Can hardly wait to see you all. XXC
Posted by: Granny Constance | Friday, December 05, 2008 at 23:22
Good on ya! And while I'm looking forward to read how you accomplished Katie's STTN, the most important thing is that you, in fact, accomplished it and both of you are getting a decent night's sleep. :)
Posted by: Esther | Sunday, December 07, 2008 at 13:29
that's because she's the cleverest little lambkin in toytown.
Happy Birthday Katie- beautiful niece.
Love Auntie Ruth xxx
Posted by: Auntie Ruth | Wednesday, December 10, 2008 at 09:58