Twelve, jyuuni, zwölf, doze

You are probably hoping that I continue this trend of monthly updates until Gigi is 100 months old, but sadly I think that this will be the last one until I do an update at 18 months. I know, you feel sad, and probably a little confused and frustrated. The sudden absence of so much cuteness can be devastating.


There is a lot that happened this final month of her first sweet year.

First and foremost, Gigi got her own bedroom. Since Marcos works primarily from home, we have reserved our second bedroom as his office from the time we moved in, but it was finally time to switch over. Honestly, that time had come long ago, but from last October on we have been lucky enough to have a lot of family members visit, and it made sense for us to hold off on the switch so that we could offer our family some private space. Now, Gigi can sleep without being interrupted, we can move in and out of our bedroom at night without having to tip-toe, and Gigi has access to all of her toys in her own room. The first night she screamed when we put her to down to sleep, the second night she wailed, the third night she whimpered and by day four we were in business. Another confirmation that kiddos can make any transition to a new, positive arrangement within a week, no trauma involved.


"Look Ma, no hands!". (No pants or diaper either, but who's paying attention?) Another key feature of this month has been her transition to independent standing, and her first few steps! Gigi can stand for very long periods of time if she is distracted by something in her hands. The week before her birthday, she started taking one step from standing position before falling down, and on her birthday she took about three or four independent steps to move from the couch to the chair. I've always referred to her as my text-book baby, but it was funny even to me that it was on her birthday that she explored walking for the first time. She has bumped up her movement to about 6 to 8 steps in a row, but prefers crawling when she is busy and has it on her agenda to inspect everything in our home. Which is every day.


Gigi's is changing physiologically as well. She has three teeth on the bottom, and four coming in simultaneously on top. At her one year check-up she was 20 lbs. 11 oz. (a bit lighter than she has been in the past) but 29.5 inches long. She is growing longer and leaner. Her hair is as long as all get-out, and she has started pulling out her barrettes when she is bored. Sometimes I will look over and see her head tipped back, trying to navigate the world through the small crack of visibility left under the huge shelf of hair hanging over her eyes. We might have to give a go at her first haircut pretty soon.


Socially, she is plowing forward. She babbles to us, sings to herself, says "hi" as she puts objects up to her ear, she says "bye-bye" and waves to strangers all the time. She hands us things now, and she loves to flash her cheesy grin and flirt and pretend that she is shy. She has also grown uncomfortable having us out of her sight. She plays so nicely when we are around, but as soon as we leave she becomes very unhappy. She is also offended when total strangers walk away from her, as if she has some unfinished business.


Here are some photos from her first birthday. After the big birthday to-do a few weeks ago, we had a small dinner with a few friends on her actual birth day, and opened a few gifts before bed. Above she is playing with the cup and finger puppets her Aunty Katy sent. Below, she gets affectionate with the phone while her Aunty Lizzy sings to her on speaker phone.


Any more gifts down there? Yes, one more: pink crocs from Aunty Lani and Uncle John! Hooray!