that baby of mine...

finley has passed the 13th month and she has definitely made some notable changes. harper and i were able to witness her first steps and we celebrated with lots of shouting and clapping. most days she repeats the show but she does not ever give us more than 2 or 3 steps at a time. she has 2 words: uh-oh and harper. uh-oh is clear, but harper is a bit contrived on our parts. she is much more of a nonverbal communicator. she holds her hand out flat when she wants someone to hand her something. she pops her lips when she wants you to give her something. she grunts to hug. and of course she cries when she is unhappy.
she is somewhat concernedly attached to me. 95% of her time is spent with me. she is known as the crying baby at the church nursery. they love her in spite of that, thankfully. she still clings to two nursing sessions, one at morning and night. she would still nurse all day if i would let her.
it is funny that from the first breath she took outside of the womb finley has been my child that wants the most coddling. we have indulged that coddling because she is just so ridiculously sweet. and since we have spent so much time with her paired with the coddling we have created a baby that never wants to be away from us. honestly i have not put much effort into working on this issue because only 5% of her time is spent outside of us. but i do cringe a little when she refuses to go to other people or cries at church nursery the entire time or, now, cries when she is not in my arms at our own house. i want her to want to be held but okay to be outside of that.
but, really, i know she will be okay...
i've enjoyed this baby so much but i am honestly excited about the future. this summer has been indicative of how finley's development is directly affecting the interactions of our entire family. the more my hands are freed up the more i am able to play. i have not realized how much i have missed just simply playing with all of my kids.
finley is still tiny. she wears mostly 3-6 months or 6-9 months clothing. she wears a size 3 shoe. and she is up to 18 lbs. she is by far my pickiest eater. i guess she is just like kyle :) she always examines every single thing that comes towards her mouth and it seems as if she has a strange intuition towards anything that is a vegetable. she turns her head and refuses admittance to anything that is suspect. even at 13 months old, she prefers pureed foods. for the most part all of her vegetables come in pureed forms.
my mom and dad bought her a book when she was born called Princess Baby and every day she proves more and more that she is living up to that title...