Toddler-boo had her 1-year checkup on Monday. She got the largest number of shots she’d ever received…SIX! I guess the 2 extra ones are the measles and chicken pox vaccines, both of which went into the fat on the backs of each upper arm. Before age 1, the vaccine isn’t effective, as explained to me by the doctor. The four intramuscular shots that went into her upper quads are the usual that she’d had before, DTAP and such.
Allie whimpered and started to cry as soon as she was put on the bed with the crinkly paper. That had never happened before. She cried sitting on the scale to be weighed, and she cried when the nurse came in. The pediatrician later explained that this is the age when she has the memory to associate the crinkly paper with getting shots. Her two prior times coming in within the last month for flu shots are what she’s now remembering. “It’s good, developmentally, but so sad when we see how happy they are playing with the paper at 6 months, knowing they’ll hate it at 12 months.” Allie was a trooper, though, and stopped crying once we removed her from the scary crinkly paper bed.
Here are her stats:
* Height: 80.5 cm, which is 2’7.7″; 100th percentile
* Weight: 19 lbs 5 oz; 43rd percentile (altho when I look up percentiles myself, this weight gets her in the teens in percentile, so not sure what’s wrong here)
[update 12-3-12: the pediatrician’s nurse just called me regarding an email I’d sent questioning the weight and percentile. She said that they use the WHO (World Health Organization) for their percentile guidelines, not North American children guidelines. So I guess Allie’s pretty skinny for American standards, but right in line with a global average.]
* Noggin circumference: 45.5 cm; ?th percentile

I can’t believe that in 1 year, my baby went from her birth length of 21 inches to almost 32 inches. She grew TEN AND 3/4 INCHES in a YEAR! And she’s now taller than 100% of little girls her age. Mr. W’s genes ARE dominant. Wow. Her pediatrician said that a sign of good nutrition is height. Weight is less dependable for that, because babies go thru natural weight fluctuations that may not mean anything, but nutrition is paramount to height growth. That’s a relief, since Mr. W was nervous that she’s so skinny. The pediatrician asked us about Allie’s dietary habits, and said she’s doing great. What we’re seeing is her own body type and metabolism showing up; barring any dramatic changes in diet/nutrition, she’ll likely always be a tall, slender girl. LUCKY GIRL. He asked if she was walking, and we said she’s RUNNING. She’s spinning in circles. She’s walking backwards. The pediatrician said that’s great, because most tall babies aren’t very coordinated and tend to be later with their motor skill development.

I told him that I’m still nursing morning and night, and when I’m able to be home, she’s nursed 4x/day. He said that’s great, and as long as it still works for me and the baby, to keep that up as desired. Since she’d tried cow’s milk for the first time Monday morning before the appointment and drank about 1-2 oz of it without a problem, he said to still let her have much breastmilk as she wants, but to add cow’s whole milk to her diet 1 oz at a time with her meals, up to 4 times a day (or 4 oz a day). I was given a “feeding your toddler” booklet, and was advised to follow its guidelines on dairy and carbs, not surpassing the maximums of both those groups, but that if Allie still seems hungry or shows an interest in continued eating, to give her as much fruits/veggies as she wants. I was reassured that she won’t overeat at this age. He said that as we wean her off the bottle/breastmilk, to not replace breastmilk with cow’s milk ounce-for-ounce; a common parental mistake is giving too much dairy and refined carbs, according to his child-nutrition-specialty background.

I’ve gone back and reminisced about some of the posts and photos from a year ago. Allie is a completely different person. The best change is that she’s not crying all the time! But even in the last few weeks, she’s grown so much. Her comprehension continues to astound me. She’ll be playing on her own and overhear me saying something to her dad about going grocery shopping and getting some bananas for her, and she’ll say in her cute high voice, “Ba-ya-ya?” The other day I was pointing out the animals on some toys talking to Mr. W, and when I got to “elephant,” Allie made a “Fff! Fff!” air-blowing sound. I didn’t catch the meaning of that, but Mr. W did. Hanging over her crib are three paper elephants on a Flensted mobile that was a gift from Dardy. Mr. W and I would occasionally blow at it while holding her to make the elephants move, and I’d say, “Ooh, elephant party!” which is the name of the mobile design. So now “elephant” to her is associated with the blowing sound, “Fff! Fff!”, just as “flower” to her is associated with her making a sniffing sound as she’d been told, “You don’t TOUCH a flower, you SMELL a flower! *sniff sniff*” A wonderful development in the past week is that suddenly, she’s stopped fussing when we lay her down for a diaper change (unless she wants to eat first in the morning and I nurse her first then we change her). It’s also quite a relief to not have to restrict her food. We give her almost any chopped food (I still give healthy stuff, tho) and she loves it. I don’t worry about avoiding dairy or citrus or eggs or beef or honey or blah blah blah. She eats it all, and she loves it all.

Best of all, she’s such a little character and is clearly into inducing reactions from adults. She does things and overreacts with her gasps and fake offended expressions and does her gestures, looking to us for reactions. When we laugh, she laughs, and does it again. A lot of times, she’s already smiling a little sly smile in anticipation of getting a reaction from us, as she’s about to do something. Allie is busy and on-the-go, but is generally self-entertained, running around placing animals in buckets or moving her blanket from the couch to the floor and pretending to sleep on it while sucking her thumb. We generally just sit in the living room and watch her. She’d come up to us occasionally and request help, such as when she can’t get a clamshell-type ball to open and would walk up and hand it to me, saying, “Hmm?” I like her questioning lilt. She sometimes puts a hand on my purse and says, “Bee?” I’d say, “Bag.” She’d say, “Ba” with the short “a” vowel sound, all but the last consonant.

She makes us laugh every day.