13 months!

We will probably not be doing a monthly picture each month since she's over a year old...but I will hopefully be taking pictures of her near her monthly update so I will post those with the information.

Stats:
So last month Lexi weighed a whopping 13.9 lbs at the doctor.  I started freaking out a little after we left thinking....she hasn't gained ANY weight in 6 months? Really???  And the doctor said she thought we needed to go to 5 meals a day... so that's what we've done.  About 2 weeks later we weighed her on our at home scale and she weighed 15.6 lbs.  Hopefully she has truly gained almost 2 lbs! I felt a little guilty leaving thinking it was me who for some reason hadn't given her enough food but we truly have been feeding her a lot- what we observed other kids at this age eating.  We just didn't know she needed a lot more calories than them because her doctor thinks she just has a super high metabolism and needs many more calories a day.  Anyway, hopefully she's now on the right track and I'm trying not to punish myself for things I don't know being a first time parent.

Eating:
It's changed a little since last month.  She's not such a good eater anymore.  Even though we are feeding her more meals a day, she has become a picky eater all of a sudden.  We have NO idea where it came from and HOPE it is just a phase.  She will only eat yogurt, grapes, bread, squash, cheese, bananas, sometimes pouches and random fruits at different times.  She is at an I'm-going-to-spit-this-out-if-I-don't-like-it phase.  Is that a thing? Well I just made it one.  We try and try to give her different things but I end up frustrated because I've tried 5 different foods (cut up, steamed, heated whatever) and she will not try it.  I put it in her mouth and she'll spit it out.  I mean I can't force her to eat it so I'm keeping my fingers crossed that it's just a teething or weird texture thing.  She has 4-that's right FOUR- teeth coming in up top... 1 is already through the gums but the other ones are white and haven't come through yet.  WHO KNOWS!

Milk has been a puzzle to figure out as well.  At first she wouldn't drink any milk (we buy the Horizon organic whole milk).  So, I got on google (I'm the google queen) and tried to see what other parents who's kids wouldn't drink milk did.  The first thing I tried was heating it because it was definitely cold coming out of the fridge.  No luck.  Next, I thought adding a little vanilla soy milk to it to sweeten it up might make it more appealing.  Nada.  Then we tried diluting it with half water so it wasn't quite as strong then slowly decreasing the water until it was just milk.  Bingo!  She started drinking the milk.  Her doctor wants her drinking about 2 sippy cups a day and she's definitely not there yet but it's an improvement.  She definitely still prefers water but it's a work in progress.

I am nursing 4 times a day- morning, before each nap, and at night.  This week we are going to try to drop one of the before nap feedings and go from there.  I'm guessing her morning feeding will be last to be dropped (since I can now nurse her and then put her back in her crib to play for about 20 minutes!) but we'll see.  My goal is to be done nursing by the end of April.  The doctor also said she's probably not getting many calories from it but still getting some of the immunities from it.  She really only nurses for a couple minutes each time so I  don't think it will be hard to stop.  She also doesn't get "nursed to sleep" when we lay her in the crib she is fully awake- so I think that will help too.

Napping/Sleeping:
I was a little worried we were about to abandon nap #2 and go to 1 nap a day but we came in and saved it!  We started on a 3 hour schedule to allow her more time to be sleepy and so far it's worked really well.  Our day looks like this:

7-7:30 Wake up
7:30 Nurse and put back in crib until around 7:45ish
8:00 Breakfast (yogurt and fruit)
10:30 Nap #1
12:30 Lunch
2:30 Meal #3/snack
3:00-3:30 Nap (depending on wake up time from Nap #1)
4:45ish- Dinner (Meal #4)
6:00- Meal #5/Snack while we eat
7:30 bedtime

I think I will like looking back on this to see what our schedule was like at this age- so sorry if that was super boring for you :) She is sleeping all night- from 7:30-7:00/7:30 minus about 3 days where she was waking up every hour to every other hour because of teething.  Then that tooth popped out and she's gone back to normal... until the other 3 teeth start coming through...

Clothing:
Obviously she's still in 6-9 month but I've also started putting her in some 6-12 month and they fit pretty good. Yay!

Things she's loving:
-Being outside!  With several warm weather days mama ain't complainin'
-Being chased
-Being surprised
-Walking with us holding her hands
-Still loves reading books

Firsts this month:
-Tooth #3
-Saying night night, nana (for banana), nay-nay for Naomi (we have a picture of her friend that she likes to look at) So now the word total is: dada, mama, bye-bye, ball, hey, night night, nana, nay nay
-She knows where her belly, mouth, nose, ears and feet are and will touch them or show them to you if you ask her where they are.

Little Extras:
-She can understand the majority of what we say.  If we tell her to get something, to go somewhere, etc she will do it (most of the time ;)
-Instead of saying "ball" she says "ba-ba" which is funny that she doesn't just say "ba" but has to say it twice.
-When we're at church she wants to be with Marshall.  I don't know what it is about being there- maybe she knows it's where he works and "his" territory but if she's with me she's looking around saying "dada?" "dada?" trying to find him.
-Marshall taught her how to say "dada" when anyone asks "who's girl are you?" and she gets so excited afterward!

These pictures were taken right after Lexi turned 13 months when the Ferrells and Blalocks were in Sumter for the GIS (Global Impact Sunday) at FBC.  These pictures were taken at Swan Lake then the last few were on Sunday after church in our yard.