"Sweet Pie"

Ben has been calling Molly his "little sweet pie" lately! It is so loving and cute! We sometimes call her a sweetie pie, or a sweet pea, but he has created his own combination with "sweet pie" and he calls her that all the time. If she is crying after a nap, he will come up and hold her hand and ask, "What is the matter, little sweet pie? Did you wake up sad? It's ok, little sweet pie, brother is here!" It is the sweetest thing I have ever heard!!

As for Little Miss Sweet Pie, here are some new developments:

-She can sign these words: milk, all done, more, bye bye, pick me up.

-She can say these words: night night, woof woof, Ben (sounds like "Den!"). And she tries words all the time. She has tried probably 15 new words in the last 2 days alone, but she can't say them consistently yet, so, speech-therapist that I am, I don't give her credit for any of those. Interestingly though, you might notice that "mama" is not on the list...that's right...this little mama-addict who STILL fusses for me to hold her if just about anyone else is holding her and I walk into the room, and who sleeps curled up to me every night, won't even TRY to say "mama". She will sometimes try "dada", though she isn't consistent yet. But she won't even try "mama". Sometimes I think it is just that she feels she and I are really just extensions of each other, so she shouldn't have to name me, I know what she wants. But, as any mom knows, it is so sweet to hear your little one calling for you, (without whining) that I will admit that I am really starting to get antsy for this word to come into use!

-She can point to "nose" and "belly". It is SO cute!! She will always point to your nose when you ask her nose, and she will always point to her belly if you ask her belly.

-She pretends to talk on the phone now!! If she finds any small toy or tv remote, or anything remotely similar to a cell phone in size, she will pick it up and "talk". SO cute.

-She can blow toy whistles. This seems like a difficult thing to me for this age, but she sure can do it well.

-She likes to scribble when I give her the chance. *Mental note...give her more chances* She also likes to try to feed herself with a spoon...I also need to let her practice this more too.

-She is SO close to walking. At Granny and Grandpa's house last night, she took probably 8-10 steps in between Granny and Grandpa. But I will say that there is something about Granny and Grandpa's house in particular. She tends to be much more physically adventurous there. They have a really nice, big open space in their living room, and I wonder if she feels the feeling of free space and is more encouraged to try things. She actually finally "got" crawling there, too. So I wouldn't be surprised if it takes her a while to get up to that many steps here at home, even though she did it at Granny's pretty easily yesterday. We'll see.

-Oh, and one last thing...she's TEENY! Not really truly teeny, but teeny compared to her brother and cousin Anna. We went in for her 1 yr check-up, and the doctor thought she looked great and was developing well in every way. But we did check her height and weight, and she weighs only 19 pounds, and is just over 28 inches long. That puts her in the 25% for weight, and the 35% for height. Those numbers aren't concerning at all, but she used to be at the 50% for both, so it is a drop.
It is true, however, that growth charts are standardized to all babies; there aren't separate charts for breast-fed babies vs formula-fed babies, and our doctor said that it is typical for breast-fed babies to be lower on the scale at this age than formula-fed babies because they are still regulating their own calories more independently. Ben actually went through a similar drop, but it was more like dropping from the 90% range to the 60% range, so he was still big at this age.
Secretly though, I kind of like it. Here's why: Ben was a beautiful baby, but also always on the very top of the scale...usually in the 75% to 90% range. And for the first year of his life, I got TONS of comments about what a huge baby I had. He was out of his baby carrier car seat by 9 months, and we were really pushing in to have kept him in that long! He was also always 1 to 2 clothes sizes above his age. It wasn't a problem at all, but it was just hard to have him out of the baby carrier before he was walking, and any cute outfit he had stopped fitting him in the blink of an eye.
So I kind of longed for a baby who would be in the carrier until they were walking, so I wouldn't have to let them crawl on so many dirty floors. And I wanted a baby who generally wore a cute outfit for more than 4 weeks.
Well, I have my wish. Molly is still 2 full pounds under the weight limit for the carrier, and she will surely be walking before she puts on those pounds. And she is just now getting into her 12-mo clothes, so I have gotten to enjoy some cute outfits for a very long time now!
But, just as I type this, I am reflecting that she has (finally) really started eating well lately, and Ben also hit a huge growth spurt right after his 1st birthday, so I should probably enjoy my little 19-pounder while I still can!