Our Weekend, Plus Anika is 14 months and VERBAL!

I got an email today from Baby Center...Sometimes I just delete those things and other times I will skim the email.

The Subject was "Your 14 Month Old" They know my kid is 14 months because once upon a time I signed up for those emails when I was like a day pregnant. 

The email talked about vocabulary today and said:  ""Ball," "dog," and "bye" may be your child's favorite – and only – words, though some early talkers have as many as 20 words in their vocabulary....."Bla bla...well, it prompted us to sit down and come up with a list of Anika's words for her baby book.

I sent my list to my mom and told her to add any I forgot.

SO, here is what Anika is saying at 14 Months:
Dog/Doggy, Daddy/Dada, Nona, Mumma, Keys, Banana,
No No/No, door, banana, cracker,

bird, ducky, dog poo, dirty, diaper, all done, more, water, Nigh nigh (Night night), Potty, nose (which sounds like noooooooooooo but she points to her nose or my nose when she says it), shoes (sounds like Sues), Down (dooooown), Up, ball, flower, hat (HER FAVE!), hi, bye bye, Uh oh, titty (thanks to Andrew, but I pretend she is saying Teddy with a nz accent), doll, Ow, Yum yum, bubbles, bum bum, hot, milk, toes.

So, that is like 40 Words. Of course she doesn't say them All all the time.

Sounds: Bzzz for her buzzy bee, Grrr for bear, vroom for a ride, Hoo hoo for the sound an owl makes

Signs: Dog, more, milk

Anika was with a lady this week who specializes in children development ages 0-3 and speech. The lady said Anika has a very big vocabulary for her age!   After the bratty behavior she has been exhibiting to me, it was nice to hear something so positive!  I do have to give Andrew and my mom a lot of credit for A's vocabulary list though.

Anika is a helper. At the grocery store, I hand her the food and she puts it on the belt. My mom let her carry a can around the store the other day and she said she carried it the whole time without dropping it and handed it the lady to pay! She picks up dirty laundry off the floor and puts in in the hamper sometimes or just picks it up and looks at me and says dirty.  She also LOVES to climb everywhere and everything. She has no fear.

Andrew and Anika put their shirts on their head as their bug hats :)  I had them demonstrate for me after they came in...they had more clothes on before, obviously.

Last week, Anika had a meltdown because she wanted to wear her doggy shoes, which fall off. When we got home on Friday, she took her practical shoes off, and doggy shoes on!

Saturday, I had a 5K race.  I was nervous. I have NOT been running outside lately.  The race benefited my friend's son who was in an accident last year and now suffers from a spinal cord injury. He is paralyzed from the chest down.  WHen I wanted to walk during the race, I thought of him being stuck in a wheel chair, and that made me push harder and deal with it!  Running 5K is the LEAST I can do to show support! The end was along the lake and I ran on the docks and it was GORGEOUS!
I actually finished faster than I thought- 34 minutes. My mom kicked my ass and finished in like 25 minutes. ha

Ew. Thunder thighs. I have Gained 12 POUNDS back. TWELVE. A LOT in the past 2 weeks. Wah. Kick my ass. Kick it.
After the race, Anika, Andrew and I went to breakfast....I got veggie eggs benedict so zeroed out all the calories I burned!

Sunday, we went to brunch with SIL, BIL and the twins. It was BEAUTIFUL OUT. We went down on the docks and took photos.

One of my old dresses. Made in America- can you tell by the colors? :)

We got a TON of Anika and her cousins...SOOOO CUTE!

After brunch we went to do a little shopping.
Andrew was looking for a new lawn mower, so we went to a few stores.
At the final one, Anika was done and climbed on the lawn mowers and had a tantrum when we wouldnt let her. She also climbed into a fire pit (display). When I pulled her away and she freaked out, I Did NOT GIVE IN. I just walked out of the store and out to the car where she calmed down and then we went back in to meet Andrew. I decided IM goign to do my VERY Best to not give in, even in public....which is where I want to give in to shut her up.

We also went to a store to get a bath mat and Andrwe was looking for jeans. Anika pulled a whole hat display apart and put each hat on her head.  When I was sick of cleaning up hats, I put her in the carriage and she fell in love with herself...in the mirror.

After all the shopping adventures, we went home to plant the garden...we were planting herbs and guess who put a handful of dirt in her mouth....

She didnt want to spit it out either!

Even though we were busy Sunday and doing lots of things, it was the PERFECT Family day!! I dont recall wanting to raise my voice at Andrew once! haha. I usually find SOMETHING to nag him about, but it was a good day. Saturday I took Anika to a graduation party while Andrew stayed home to do the lawns...and that is when the lawn mower broke :(
 

Oh, gosh- this girl is full of it. Today at the gym, a lady came up to me and said how my daughter was the cutest thing and asked if she acted as sweet as she looked! ha. I told her a couple weeks ago I would have said yes, but the past couple weeks she has shown her OTHER side :)

Anika had a package in the mail today from one of my "imaginary friends" - it was a Dr. Seuss bracelet!!  HOW SWEET! She loves it.

Ya, I got more stickers for the 2nd year :)
She has more molars!! She may be missing hair, but she has lots of teeth!!

My big One year Old

Only a couple weeks late, right?
I seriously have not slowed down. I had my first business trip  since having Anika, this past week.  I sure missed her at night.

We went to a birthday party yesterday 1.5 hours away and we have 5 more in the next 6 weeks.  We did a 5K this morning.

We are heading down to MA this afternoon to see my friend and her almost 1 year old. Tomorrow is Marathon Monday.

Here are some pics from her 1st Birthday. As I have mentioned before, her party will not be until June.

I ordered the shirt from etsy, but its hard to see the name and the 1 is INSIDE the cherry blossom painting, so hard to see the 1 as well.  Owell.

Barefoot!  It was VERY warm on her birthday and her birthday week. Unusually warm for March!

SHE LOVES Being outside! LOVES IT. She stands at the door and wants to go out and play. Her sitter said she just LOVES to play outside too.

Taking the sticker off

Presents from daddy...note the Guzzi on one :)

My parents gave her the American Doll Bitty baby. I had this baby too.  She got some clothes and books from Nona too.  The hat goes with a bathing suit from Nona...whats it called, a skull cap?

We just had my parents and niece over for dinner.  We had turkey tips, quinoa and veggies.
I made Anika's cake.  The ingredients included: whole wheat flower, wheat germ, unsweetened apple sauce, baking powder, 6 bananas and I put some Cinnamon in it. The top had some REAL maple syrup from my dad's trees mixed with...tofu!  I didn't tell my family what was in the cake, and they LIKED IT! It was VERY dense. 

The morning of her birthday she had a lead blood test. UGh. STUPID idea.  Its not even protocol in our state. They give a questionnaire and base your child's risk off that.  They were not going to do a lead test, but since Andrew works with lead, he wanted one done for peace of mind.  He takes EVERY precaution. He drives a work car that Anika and I dont ride in. He doesnt wash his work clothes at our house and he uses a separate shower!  The person tried to get blood from Anika's right arm. After digging in her arm for a vein, they couldn't find one. THEN,  they tried the other arm. SHE WAS Freaking out.  STILL, they couldnt get blood. No one has EVER been able to get blood from my arm either. They always have to get it from my hand. They decided to prick her finger and held her finger over a vile and tried to Squeeze drops out for no joke, 10 minutes. IT was HORRIBLE. I was holding her and I just looked at Andrew and gave him the stink eye. We should have just gotten up and said, no thanks. Basically, we were all traumatized. It was really not good a good start to the day! Of course, her results came back fine. ugh.

Anika is 19 pounds and 28.5 inches.  She has a belly on her. She definitely is not SKINNY, just petite. She is saying lots of words and into everything. Her doctor was pretty surprised with how verbal she is considering how physical she is.  She doesn't miss a trick and is very observant. My guess is she gets THAT from her "curious" mom :) Healthy as a horse. She has a couple molars and has still been a good teether. She did have a rough week a while ago and thinking back, it must have been when she was getting the molars. It wasn't TOO bad, but she was very clingy for a week and woke up a few times in the night. She is going to her first dentist apt. this week!  We have used some hylands teething tablets a few times and we have the whole hylands kids kit.   As you know, we try to use natural remedies as much as possible....so far we have had luck with how we are doing things.

She has figured out how to go down the stairs the correct way. She still doesn't have a lot of hair.

She is still nursing mornings, nights and  weekends.  She drinks almond milk, coconut milk and goat milk during the day. She eats nuts and nut butters and has no issues with them.

Her doctor recommends no dairy until the age of 3, so we are tying to stick with that, but if she wants a bite of something, then of course we allow it.

LOOK at the difference a year makes! Above, Anika on Day 1

Anika almost 2 weeks old.

 Anika 1 Month Old.

I am sure I'm missing about a million things.  This sweet daughter of ours just amazes us daily.  It seems like every day she learns something new.  She went over to the oven the other night, touched the outside door and said "HOT" I thought it was a coincidence but then she said Hot when she grabbed hot food off my plate and then again when we hopped in the hot shower.  She says nigh nigh when she is tired and goes to sleep pretty effortlessly most nights. She is still taking 2 naps a day.  Usually 2 hours in the morning and 1.5 hours in the afternoon. She goes to bed around 7:30 and wakes up at 5...she comes to bed and nurses and we get up for the day at 6. Sometimes, I put her back in her crib before 6 if she is keeping me awake :)

She helps me put things away often. When I bring her cloth nappies from the washing machine to the drying rack, I often drop some on the way. If I ask her to pick them up she will bring them over. She will also bring me the remote :)  She helps me put her books back on the shelf because she LOVES pulling them all off. 

Overall, she is a really good kid so far. She has started to pinch me and bite me at times and I hope that phase passes quickly.  She also gets bratty when she is tired...it comes on FAST and I know its just time to get her to sleep, which often means we leave wherever we are.

I know I usually write these posts TO Anika, but I forgot :)   I know I always say it, but I just cant believe how fast this year went! Its just amazing.