Isolde at 12 Months

Right now Isolde...

• 's most used word is still "där" but now she's rediscovered "mamma" and "pappa" and she practices often on them, though not necessarily to us.  One morning she said "mamma" while looking at me and then she smiled like she was both proud of herself and a bit embarrassed.  So cute!  She's also trying to say "ja" and "nej" and she babbles a lot of "rappakalja" that we don't understand.
• likes waving goodbye to me in the morning and it's always with a smile.  If she's slightly whining it's because she wants to come out to the exciting stairway beyond the door.  When I come home she comes crawling - or walking, but crawling is faster - and when I pick her up she hugs me hard and sometimes takes my face in her little hands and gives me a kiss (well, sort of a kiss, more like a nose kiss).
• took her first (unsupported) steps just after Christmas (at 11½ months) and since then she's been taking more and more steps and getting steadier and steadier and in the last week (12 months & 1 week) it's like she's finally really got it and she can now walk across a room and over dorrsills and carpets, even if it's still a bit wobbly.  See video!  It was interesting to see how it progressed from standing without supporting, to learning how to stand up (rise) on the spot without holding on to anything, to taking almost like running steps and then sitting down hard, to walking a few steps and then stopping, i.e. exercising being in control, to finally walking without much effort.
• at the moment likes books with flaps for lifting or other ways to discover new things in the book and we read Tippen säger god natt (Spot says good night) and Miffy på bondgården every day.  She still likes one of her first favourites, Vad lilla Anna fick se, in a very read and falling apart version from when I was little.  She seems to prefer books with more text and longer narratives now.
• usually sleeps from 8pm to 7 or 8 am.  In her own bed and room until 5 or 6 am and then in our bed for another couple of hours.  I love cuddling with her in the morning and going back to sleep together but I'm really grateful we get most of the night to ourselves! One or two nights of week she wakes at midnight or 1 am and sleeps with us for the rest of the night, since it's usually difficult to get her to go back to sleep in her bed at that hour.  It usually takes her between 5 and 15 minutes to go to sleep in the evening but sometimes it can take up to 30 minutes.  She almost always fall asleep by herself in her crib but it often takes a few times of picking her up, giving her another hug, putting her down again, more singing, and patting her back and bum, not exactly in that order, before she finally lets go.  She has so much energy in her little arms and legs right now so sometimes it actually helps to hold her legs so she can't kick around in bed.
• doesn't mind being fed (jar food or other wetter food) but prefers feeding herself, mostly with her hands but sometimes with a spoon or fork.  She's really good at being fed with a adult-size fork.  It's like she's understood that it's bigger and sharper and she opens up wide and carefully.  She often eats two lunches and two dinners since she eats quite a lot of our food too (our mealtimes don't really match yet).  Her favourite food is corn - she could live on it if we let her - and of course raspberries, but she's still not keen on banana unless it's mixed with a lot of other fruits.
• is such a little proper person now.  She's always been her own little person - it surprised me how the personality was there from the beginning - but now we can literally see how she develops and grows mentally every day.  It's amazing how much a little brain takes in every day, every minute, every second.  She's learning things every day that shapes her.  She is showing more and more will and she can be a little dramaqueen sometimes.  We can tell that she already is trying to "manipulate" us (not maliciously of course) and tries different techniques to get what she wants.  But she gives up quite easily and her "tantrums" can hardly be called that yet.  We just think it's cute at this stage :)
• probably weighs at least 8.3 kg and is 70 cm tall now but I'm not sure since we haven't been to BVC for a month and a half.  The next appointment is not until she 18 months so we'll have to try and weigh and measure her at home at some point to keep track.  We can see that she's healthy and growing but I'm a bit of "keeping track"-geek so I want to know the numbers! :)  We have now put away all her size 68 clothes (though some still fit, especially Polarn & Pyret stuff) and she wears size 74 and some 80.
• gets so happy when it's someone she recognises, like her grandparents and her godmother Maria (who's probably the friend of mine who she's met the most and who she's really close to).  It's lovely to see her interact with people and especially people who know her.  She's very social in general and when we had 30 adults and 10 children here for her birthday (we had an open house so they were not all here at once but most people were here the first two hours) she didn't mind the chaos at all and was her usually happy self.
• had her first proper injury (including some bleeding) a few days before her first birthday.  Or so we thought.  Turns out she had hurt herself once before at her grandparents (farmor & farfar).  But it can't have been that bad at all since she didn't even have a swollen lip when we picked her up after a couple of hours.  Anyhow, it was bound to happen at some point and there will be many more injuries in her lifetime I'm sure even though we'll of course do our best to prevent them!
• still toothless!  Well, she has her two bottom teeth but when will she get more??  I fear she'll get ten at once and we'll won't sleep for a week!
• has her mouth wide open when she's doing something exciting, like riding on her new bee car or playing with something new she's found.
• takes after her father and has rhythm in her blood (Peter is quite the dancer).  She moves her little tushie almost to anything and lately she's started doing some sort of jazz hands thing too.   It's so funny how it's almost impossible for her to listen to music without "dancing". 
• wants to play the baby apps (Pekaboo farm, Pekbok and Soundtouch) on our iPhones or the iPad so much that we have to hide them.  If some of those apps weren't so good, especially Soundtouch, we would regret showing her the iPhone in the first place!
• wants to be with us and see what we're doing, and especially in the kitchen, but can also play for a while with the stuff in her room or her toys in the living room while we eat dinner (after she's eaten half of our food) or watch TV.  We have started playing some imagination games, such as pretending to cook food and eat as well as cuddle with the stuffed animals.  It's still mostly her wanting us to pretend while she's watching and handing us the stuff.
• thinks the hoover is scary but at the same time really interesting.  She doesn't cry but she practically jumps into your arms when the hoover starts.