We’re finally at the one year mark! The girls just had their birthday today, though we’re going to wait until next weekend to have their birthday party. We have photos up for the past month.
This month we have more pictures of the girls smiling where you can see the teeth that they cut last month. Eleanor also added a second top tooth, so now they each have four teeth. We’ve started wiping down their teeth with moistened gauze before Miranda and Eleanor go to sleep. We have to keep those teeth healthy!
The girls have both been continuing with their solids. Miranda is still better at eating solids. Eleanor doesn’t chew quite as well, and she ends up with a mouth full of food. Eleanor also really looks forward to her bedtime bottle, whereas Miranda has completely lost interest in it. Miranda is down to two bottles a day. Eleanor has three.
Miranda learned to (kind of) throw this month. We’ll toss a small ball to her and she’ll pick it up. Then she’ll swing her arm and let go the ball. Most of the time, it goes almost straight down and then dribbles over to us. Still, it’s clear she’s trying to throw–she just doesn’t have the timing quite down yet. We can still toss a ball back and forth in this way though. I tried it with Eleanor, but she just comes over to me to hand me the ball.
We haven’t been diligently teaching our girls sign language, but they have still picked up a few signs. When we ask if they’re done eating, Eleanor and Miranda will raise their hands above their head. They may not quite understand that it’s a question. They may just be raising their hands above their head. They also do a baby-sign language sign for “more” when we ask if they want more food. We think they have more of an idea what this sign means.
Both Eleanor and Miranda have been putting together more complex strings of sounds, but they haven’t produced anything intelligible yet. We can ask them questions about where something is, and they know how to point at a few things (a fish on a throw pillow, various body parts, a picture of a flower, etc.). They seem to enjoy us talking to them.
We haven’t been doing as much walking this month as in the past. Miranda still seems to be the one more interested in walking, but when I try switching to holding just one of her hands, she comes to a stop and sits down.
As before, Eleanor and Miranda continue to be pretty interested in what each other are doing. They’ll each come over to play with whatever toy the other one is playing with. This leads to quite a bit of pulling at the same toy. Eleanor will screech. Miranda will continue to hold on with quite a bit of determination. If Miranda loses out, she’ll flop onto the ground and start crying softly. Eleanor will stay upright, but cry more loudly. Most of the time, we try to intervene before it reaches this point.
Hopefully with next month’s pictures we’ll be able to show Eleanor and Miranda’s birthday party. We’re planning a small get-together at a nice park. No inflatable castle. No ball room. We’ll probably have cake. We can do something bigger when they understand what’s going on.