Catalogue of 13 months

Beth is now nearly 14 months old. Amazing!

She weighed in at 11.2kg at our nurse visit last week, putting her at the 90th or 95th percentile depending on which charts you use. However, she's had a lot of pain from her teeth over the last week and has been off her tucker and hitting up the mummy buffet something fierce day and night, which has also seemed to add to the sack of potatoes factor as breastmilk is basically a high-carb protein shake (BEEFCAKE! BEEFCAKE!), and we weighed her at 11.5kg a few days after that. Don't know if the extra grams will stick though. She's 78cm, which is 95th or 97th percentile depending on the charts.

Beth has quite the sense of humour these days. Favourite jokes include hiding, stealing daddy's glasses and putting them on mummy, play-biting my chin and Grant's elbow, and any form of peekaboo, especially around the couch. Grant is excellent at ducking down behind it, around the side, and popping up where she least expects it.

She is an excellent climber. She can climb the climbing wall up to the play equipment in the park across the road most but not all times, and can now go down the slippery dip by herself (on her tummy, feet-first). She reliably turns around and goes down steps backwards, and can also do that off our bed, although she has had two mighty tumbles from failing to turn all the way around!

She finds flights of stairs great fun, so it's a lucky thing we don't have any :)

She adores the great outdoors. She can amuse herself for hours in the backyard, poking at dirt and clambering around, with the odd attempt to eat toxic oleander. We have been to various beaches on the Parramatta River lately and seems to get a real kick out of the mud.


And just like Daddy, she LOVES the rain.


The great thing is that our back verandah is so holey that one can experience the rain indoors!

She can't walk by herself yet. However, she can go quite a distance with us just holding one of her hands. She can squat and stand very well with her Donnelly calves, and Auntie Tara taught her a game of down (squat) - up that has really helped with her standing and that she thinks is hilarious.

Grant has been taking her to swimming lessons once a week, and I am told she has a great time, and is also twice the height of the other babies.

She's been having a lovely time with her grandmothers on Wednesdays. She is always very excited to see them. She has been a little sooky and clingy on the first days I have at home with her each week (Thursdays), and usually wants to nurse a lot on that day. However, I am choosing to think of this as a nice thing - as GrandEm says, there is no harm in having a favourite!

And other than that, the only thing I can think of about our lovely big girl is that she never met a peg she didn't like, but she prefers the red ones (and will rip them off the clothesline if it is in reach).