Our Baby at 12 Months

12 months is such an exciting age. Maxine does something new everyday. And she is so sweet. Here is an update on what she is like now.

She still takes two regular naps a day, usually 2 hours at a time. Her bedtime lately has been 10pm and she wakes up at 8am. Sometimes she wakes up at about 3am and cries but more often than not she will go back to sleep without us having to do anything. Raquel sleeps through everything!

Maxine is a fantastic little eater. She eats everything I put on her tray. Grandma Emma had given us a bunch of tomatoes from her garden and Maxine LOVED them, I mean, she kept shoveling them into her mouth this one time and that night, she vomitted in her crib--we think she probably had too many 'maters. I can't help but compare my two kids--When Raquel was this age she scared me because it looked like she wasn't eating anything. That worried me so much!

Maxine is showing a sudden interest in walking. This is big news. She has been so happy crawling for so long now. For some reason she loves to be up on her tip-toes--I think she's going to have to learn how to flatten her feet before she can walk unassisted. It's funny though because I see her up on the balls of her feet constantly and it makes me think she was made to wear high heels.

We still have Maxine on formula instead of Cow's milk. Her stomach is sensitive and the cow's milk was making her get car sick. Poor thing: both of her parents were car sick kiddos long ago and now we've passed it onto her.

As you know, she LOVES to dance!

A couple of days ago, Maxine and I were playing quietly in my room when suddenly she pointed to my eyeball and said, "Eye" clear as day. It really took me by surprise. This is not a body part we have practiced very often, like tummy and teeth. So for the past two days now we have been having fun saying "Eye" and pointing to eyes.

Maxine adores Raquel. And Raquel knows exactly how to make her baby sister crack up. When Maxine cracks up, we all crack up. She has such a funky laugh! It's definitely not a dainty or pretty laugh!

If you saw Jose playing with Maxine you might be frightened for her. He plays kinda rough and talks in a gruff voice with her, but guess what--she digs it. She is all smiles and giggles with Daddy. When I hear him drive into our driveway, I say, "Daddy's home!" and she stops what she's doing to look out a window or go towards the front door.

I have probably forgotten to mention something but the stuff I've told you is pretty cool, right?

Oh by the way, in the picture up top she had just eaten her dinner of teriyaki brocolli and chicken and I gave her a whole strawberry to try for the first time (they say a baby has to be 12 months old before they can have strawberries). At first she looked at it and didn't know if it was food or not. Then she sunk her teeth into and I think the juice she tasted surprised her, that's what she's doing in the second picture. She ended up loving it and ate the whole thing.

The end.