13 months

On the boat up at the cabin

Lauren has really developed a lot of new skills over the past month. She has a few new words such as kitty, help, book, choo choo, dog, uh oh, and of course her usual mama and dada. Her signing has evolved and now includes baby, milk, bird, dog, all done, more, eat, time, and cat. She LOVES her baby signing DVD! Lauren can now identify her hair (which she pretends to brush) and someones eyes, nose, mouth, and ear. She even copied daddy one evening and when prompted did the arm move for "olay!". Lauren loves music and dances or claps almost every time she hears a song. I can instantly calm her with sincing or humming a tune. She really loves to please and is a very sensitive little girl. The instant we smile at her or praise her she beams back and claps with excitement, but if we raise our voice sternly to her she just starts bawling. Lauren loves to read books and particularly enjoys turning the pages; sometimes she even reads to us. Playing peek-a-boo, listening to and copying the itsy bitsy spider, playing with the remote or cell phone, and rough housing with daddy are other favorites as of late.
Lauren has become more confident with walking over the past few days and I think that it will continue to grow quickly. She'll be running in no time! For now her push toys are still a favorite.
She eats a good variety of food but still not a big eater. There's no tricking her into getting a bite in her mouth, she'll just push her tongue out at you. Lauren is an independent little one and does things on her own timing. We have her now fully on whole milk and about a week after her first birthday she completely weaned herself off of nursing.
Lauren has 7 (almost 8) teeth and I can feel some molars getting ready to come through now as well. Some of these teeth seem to take forever to come through! She likes to brush her own teeth but as soon as I try to finish the job she gets pretty upset.
She's going to bed around 6:30-7pm and gets up sometime between 6-7am. She's amazing at going to bed and down for naps and though she likes to be cuddled she'll let us know when she's ready to go in her crib. Lauren has just transitioned to one nap but sometimes still needs 2. She really likes her own crib and room - when we're traveling and have to put her down somewhere else Lauren cries out as we leave the room and naps terribly (thankfully she still sleeps through at night). We experienced this over the past several days while visiting the cabin. She has just recently became attached to a little soft doll with a rattle inside, I'm thinking this may become her "lovey". For now her pacies are her "lovies" and we don't sleep without them. She is really good though about not having them in during the day.
She's an amazing little girl and makes us laugh every day. Lauren is such a joy to our lives!