Isolde at 13 Months

Want to keep up these updates for a while longer!

Our little one-year-old at 13 months old is:

• showing more and more emotions.  She's making a lot of new faces and you can really tell that she's trying out both feelings and faces and waiting to see what we do.  Relatedly, she's also developing stronger and stronger will and is trying to show it by exaggerating (or so it seems).  So there's a lot of trying different cries and wining and looking at us to see our reaction.  And sometimes if I say "no", e.g. no to carrying her right there and then, she goes to daddy and "complains".  And vice versa.  Her cries are still very soft but they are getting stronger and higher and she's starting to try high-pitch screaming to get what she wants too.
• not much of a talker yet but has recently started saying "noo, noo" (not English [noe] but more like Finnish "nu" if that makes sense haha).  She shapes her mouth like she's going to make a kiss and says "noo noo noo".  It is very cute!  Otherwise she's not saying many clear words even though she's constantly "talking".  She's not saying mamma or pappa very often right now. Guess she's practising on other words.
• learning how to play.  She brings us toys and she wants us to play with them.  It's not always easy to understand what she wants so sometimes it's obvious we're not doing what she had in mind.  It's not always fun for me in the mornings because that's when she's in her best mood and she wants to play or be read to but I have to get ready for work :(  I know she has Peter who will play with her but it gives me a little heartache to turn her down.  She's doesn't seem to care that much herself yet.  As long as daddy reads instead she's fine. 
• struggling to walk in her winter boots and snowsuit but otherwise she's always walking and hardly ever crawls anymore.  Lately she's often been walking backwards like she's practising that.  She's not running yet but you just wait!
• eating more and more with utensils but still mostly with her hands, or fingers, really.  Sometimes, even if she manages to get a piece of food on her fork she takes her other hand and picks the food from the fork and puts it in her mouth with her fingers. 
• not very patient and has a short attention span right now.  This means we usually read two pages - and sometimes just two lines - of a book at the most before she wants to read the next one, and so on.  She also throws little tantrums when she doesn't get what she wants but it's still easy to distract her with another toy or "ignore" (i.e. let her get a bit mad for 30 seconds before she gives up and is happy again) her so that she decides to find something to do anyway.
• still a lightweight at 8.4 kg and 70.5 cm (according to our attempts to weigh and measure at home) and wears mostly size 74 but some 80
• not keen on wintersuit and boots (as mentioned above).  I think it's because she feels very immobile.  She hasn't really learnt how to walk properly in her boots yet, mainly because she's mostly in her pushchair when we're out and about anyway.  So we should probably make her practise more.
• drinking less and less välling (formula) in the evening so we've actually stopped making it, at least for now.  She seems to be fine, i.e. sleep through the night, without it.  Maybe because she usually eats a second dinner with us ha ha.
• learning how to kiss goodbye and good night.  I usually make a kissing mouth and kissing sounds and after a while she leans towards me and rubs her nose towards my nose or my mouth.
• sleeping in her own bed throughout most nights, 19:30-20:00 to 07:30-08:00, but one or two nights a week come to our bed either in the early morning or around midnight or 1am.  Every two weeks or so she has a night where it's impossible to get her to fall asleep again and we (or mostly Peter) have to stay up with her for 2-3 hours in the middle of the night as nothing we tried works - välling, new nappy, sleeping in her bed, sleeping in our bed...  It's like you just have to wait and tire her out by letting her play.  She is tired but it's like she's on the fifth roll.  Any tips?!
• often playing in her room provided we stay with her.  Otherwise she goes in there on her own and brings a toy out to the kitchen or the living room. 
• still very interested in cooking and it's difficult to do anything in the kitchen with her attached to your legs, wanting to be picked up.  If someone is in the bathroom at the same time that's pretty interesting but not for very long.
• getting pretty good at the sorting box at least with the square and the round one - the triangle is difficult - and she knows she's done a good thing when she fits the right one in the right hole because she's stretches her arms out like "ta da!"  But sometimes she goes "ta da!" when she does very easy things too, like just putting something back in a drawer when she's playing in the kitchen.  She already knows praise is good haha! 
• a little bit afraid of the hoover.  She doesn't cry or scream or anything but she wants to be picked up immediately and then she wants to follow the hoover around at a safe distance, i.e. 1,5 metres up in your arms.  With thumb in mouth.  But when the hoover is off she happily plays with it. 
• loves the iPhone and the iPad so much we have to hide them sometimes.  It's pretty cool how she's pretty good at the baby apps.  However, she's discovered the menu button and turns off the programme all the time (and hasn't learnt how to turn the app on again yet).
• still sucking her thumb but also her right index finger, mainly when she's in the pushchair or in the car

There's lots more to write about her but I need to continue packing for our UK trip!  Stay tuned until next month for Isolde at 14 months!