Making the switch

At Leah's 12-month doctor visit, we got the green light on switching her from formula to whole milk. Since she has already been eating yogurt, cottage cheese, and cheese, the doctor said I could just switch cold-turkey if I wanted, but it would be a matter of whether or not Leah would accept the taste of milk. Since I still had a can and a half of formula left, I figured I would gradually increase the ratio of milk to formula in her bottles, plus give her sippy cups of milk at meals for her to try it. The good news is that she has been gobbling down her formula with milk in it, and even enjoying straight milk from a sippy cup and a bottle. She seems to love the taste of cold milk and I'm really relieved it's going so well. So far, no ill-effects have been noted in her diapers. The next step will be getting her off the bottle, which I'm supposed to do by the time she's 15 months.

The other thing is that now that she is 12 months old, basically all foods are fair game, except for nuts. She has already been eating mostly table food and finger food anyway, but I've been limiting it to pure, plain foods so far. She has always hated being spoon-fed baby food anyway. By the way, she's getting really good at using a spoon successfully, especially with her right hand. I'll just keep adding something new every other day to check for allergic reactions. For dinner, I brought some Korean food home and she really enjoyed the chapchae glass noodles in particular. That's one of my favorites, too, so it will be fun to share.

12 month check-up

Leah had her 12 month doctor's visit today, and she did great. The doctor was very happy with her growth and development so far. She's over 21 lbs. and 2 feet 4.5 inches, so she's right at the 50% percentile for weight and 25% percentile for height for her age, and over the 75% percentile for weight-for-length, so she's short and sturdy. Now that she's hit the 12-month, 20 lb. mark, we could technically turn her car seat around, but for safety, we will keep her rear-facing for as long as is comfortable for her. Since she is kind of short, that might be a while.

She had to get 3 shots, which is never fun, so for bonding and trust reasons, I specifically requested that the nurse bring in someone else to help hold her down this time. It was much more fun to be the one to come to her rescue when it was all over!

Pounding little footsteps

It seems this week Leah has started running everywhere she goes. I always hear and feel her quick little footsteps coming up from behind me. A lot of times, she is running around with her arms outstretched while doing her big belly laugh. It's super cute.

She's also started stomping her feet very dramatically when she's either really happy or really mad. For instance, when she sees I have the fridge, pantry, or laundry room door open, she makes a run for it, and if I shut the door before she gets there, she gets really mad and starts stomping her feet and making funny noises in her throat. Along with her new trick of loosening her shoulders when she doesn't want to be picked up, or acting like her legs don't work when she doesn't want to be put down on the ground, I think we're starting to get a taste of the toddler tantrums that are yet to come, but luckily it's still manageable.

When she's really excited and happy about something, she also stomps her feet and starts dancing in place. I recently removed the pillows and things that were protecting the fireplace hearth, and she was so excited. She has decided that this is her new stage. She gets up there and stomps and dances around. She has learned to step down from there, too, so now I can relax a little when she's playing there.

She's also now in the stage where she's bringing us stuff all the time and walking backwards and plopping into our laps. She recognizes the opening lines of four books so far, and without fail, when I start reciting the opening lines of a book, she immediately stops what she is doing (almost like she is in a trance and has just heard the secret code word) and goes and gets the right book and sits in my lap. She loves her books and wants me to read to her all the time.

She is mimicking and watching everything we do now, so now we really have to be careful around her. She can blow kisses with her hand, and she gasps and sighs and screeches back and forth with me in imitation.

Scrappin'

Some really cute scrap pages my sis-in-law, Wendy, the family scrapper, made of Leah after their visit a few weeks ago. They turned out great. Would love to learn how to do this someday.

Posh Baby

Leah received a bunch of cute new clothes for her birthday, so I was trying them on her to see how they fit. She loves clothes and always notices what she's wearing and every morning checks herself out in the mirror. We may be in big trouble when she gets older.

Leah, you have a phone call!

About a week ago on her actual birthday, before our weekend birthday trip, Leah started imitating me on the phone. I noticed that after I got off the phone, she would hold her hand up to her ear and start babbling in short, abrupt phrases. So this is her latest thing now. She does it in the car after I've gotten off the phone, and all the time at home. When the phone rings, she puts her hand up to her ear. And she uses not only her little toy cellphone, but anything she's carrying or just her hand as a phone. She even understands when I say the word telephone and puts her hand up to her ear and starts babbling. Sometimes, I pretend to make a phone call and then she smiles and starts doing it, too.

These videos are from the day we got back from our trip to Michigan. She was first using a little toy dolphin as a phone, so then we found her toy cell phone and she wandered around with it for quite some time making phone calls.

Birthday Bash Recap

We had Leah's 1st birthday party over the weekend at my sister's place in Michigan and it was a lot of fun. On John's side, his mom, nephew and niece, who had been visiting for the week, were there, too. My sister and her husband know how to put on a party, plus we knew it would be inconvenient for family to come to our area for a short party, so we were really happy that Holly and Dean were able to do this for us. We wanted to keep it pretty small so as not to overwhelm Leah with too many strangers at once. And we weren't sure how she would handle her first roadtrip and weekend away, but she surprised us and seemed to enjoy herself once she warmed up and got over her initial apprehension.

Apparently, Leah has a future in sports and will live a long life and become wealthy. That is at least what her selections at her Dol-ja-bee predict. In the Korean first birthday tradition, we placed Leah, dressed in her hanbok (given to her by her foster family), in front of seven items at a table, and waited to see which items she would pick. The first two or three items picked are said to be predictors of their life's path. She picked the ball, the thread, and the money, in that order. Not surprising to us since she's already been kicking a ball around and has very good strength, balance and coordination for a baby her age. She noticed everyone's reaction when she picked up the money and smiled and waved the $10 bill around. It was really funny.





For dinner, we had a combo of American picnic style food and Korean food we ordered from a local place....Kobe beef burgers, bratwursts, and various cold salads, etc. And for Korean food, we ordered some bulgogi, kalbi, dak bulgogi, chapchae and kimbop just to have some Korean foods available for people to sample. It wasn't the best Korean food, but at least people got a chance to try it.




Then it was time for birthday cake and ice cream. Leah got her own little baby "smash cake" and did just that to it. She didn't even make too much of a mess on herself and had only a minor meltdown at the table. We were able to get her cleaned off quickly at the kitchen sink, so luckily, we didn't need to take an intermission for her to get a bath.







Time to open presents! Leah seemed more interested in the birthday cards than the presents themselves. She got some really cute clothes, toys and books that she didn't already have. And by the end of the party, she was really pooped out and had her major meltdown, but we think she held up great for a 4-hour birthday party!





We had some professional portraits taken a few weeks ago. There were 52 shots altogether, and we went overboard and ordered 12 or 13 of them. I finally figured out how to get them uploaded here, so here are just a few.

Birthday Girl

Leah turns 1 year old today! Happy Birthday to Leah! She has changed and grown so much already in the few short months she has been with us, and we are so happy to celebrate her special day with her.

Some funny and smart things she's been doing lately.....

She stops and claps her hands and smiles to herself after every sip from a regular cup, when she kicks a ball, when she climbs up on the bed and climbs off the bed, when she climbs up the glider chair and ottoman (even while they are rocking) and when she climbs down, when she climbs off the arm of the couch, etc.

I saw her take off the baby-proofing latch from the kitchen cupboard (it was already loose) to play with in the family room, and then she brought it back a little later and hung it up on the kitchen knob all by herself and walked away.



She loves her books. This has happened 3 different times so far; at naptime or bedtime, when I've started reciting the opening lines of the book, (yes, I've had to memorize it since she always steals the book from me in mid-sentence), The Big Red Barn by Margaret Wise Brown,..."By the big red barn in the great green field, there was a pink pig who was learning to squeal...", she went and picked out the right book from a pile of books and brought it over to me and sat in my lap!




She still talks about dogs and cats all day long...still her first and last words of the day. She picks out pictures of dogs everywhere when we're out shopping or from her books and on her toys. I've given her a few old dog calendars and she loves sitting on the floor and flipping through the pages while she babbles to herself. When we were watching tv one day, she was sitting by herself and looking through her books and we saw her pointing and saying "dog" over and over. Then she came over to get us and bring us back to the book to show us the page with the dog on it. It was really cute.



She climbs in or on top of every box she can get her hands on. Here she is combining it with her mirror play.




When I am loading the dishwasher, she is always very eager to run over and stick her hand in it, so I have to keep it closed and keep her away from it. But the other day while I was emptying it, I just left it open for her to explore and she climbed right on. So here's the baby-in-the-dishwasher shot.

More family fun

Lots going on lately, so I've been too busy to blog. Last Thursday morning, John's mom, 7-year old niece, Emily, and 10-year old nephew, Shaun, arrived to help Leah celebrate her first birthday. They spent two full days on the train, coming all the way from Louisiana, to see Leah in the flesh! They were so excited to meet her and have had so much fun playing together every day. I still don't think I have any decent pictures of all three of them together since none of them ever stop moving for a second! But I'll keep trying.

Leah's birthday is on Wednesday, but since John is travelling this week, we'll be celebrating it this weekend with John's family and my family at my sister's place. Now that she's been home almost four months, her birthday will be a nice occasion to finally introduce Leah to some more family members who have been anxious to meet her.

So proud of herself

When we were teaching Leah how to get off the couch, we would clap and cheer when she did it. Nowadays, spending time on the couch is probably her new favorite activity. She combines it with her love for the mirror by standing and jumping on the couch in front of the mirror. Every time I turn around, she's back on the couch again, and she practices getting up and down all day long. She even climbs off the arm of the couch and the back of the couch safely. It's funny because when she gets down, she claps her hands and smiles and is just so proud of herself.