WSDW: Ice Ice Baby

Here’s what Jia has been up to in the short week that just past:

Helps get her dressed. She punches through sleeves to help you put her shirts and jackets on.
Gets mad when you try to help her put on her shoes and socks – she wants to put them on herself! She’s not exactly able to at this point, but she’s able to get the sock opening stretched and puts her toes near the opening. It’s really so adorable to watch. Such a little person. 🙂
She recognizes her face in photos. I’m so serious. When I’m on my computer on say, Facebook, she just wants to bang on my keyboard. But today, when I opened to the Little Sproutings homepage, she pointed right at herself in the banner and said, “Schaat?” (what she says for anything she’s pointing to, kind of like saying “Look there! That!”)
Says “uh oh” when she drops things.
When we sing “dim chong chong” (a Cantonese nursery rhyme that involves hand gestures, “touch the little bug, the little bug flies!”), she does the hand gestures right away as soon as she hears us sing it and has a huge smile on her face as she does it.
When we say “up!” she puts arms up if she’s on the changing table so that you can help her up, and if we’re downstairs and we say “up up!” she crawls towards the stairs repeating “up up!” and starts to go up the stairs.
She really enjoys flip books! Bottoms Up is the one we read together and she likes to pull up the flap to each animal (see below)
Turns pages of a book as you read.
When I get to a page in her Hugaroo book where it says “A good job hug makes you feel great, you’ve done so well let’s celebrate!” she starts clapping after you say “good job” because she knows we clap when we do a good job 🙂

Mom Thoughts:

Jia’s Stats: now 17th percentile for her weight, down from 20th percentile. She weighs a whopping 18 lbs and 15.4 oz at 12 months old, and 30 inches long (80th percentile), and 69th percentile for head circumference (45.2 cm)
We got her MMR, varicella, and prevnar vaccines today. Whew! Poor baby, 3 needle sticks.
Pretty soon we’ll have to get that convertible car seat, she’s growing so fast that now her head is almost to 1″ from the top of the shell. Our Graco Snugride 35 Click Connect has a 35 lb and 35″ length limit (I think, on the height) but her head is nearing the top. We’ll be getting the Graco Milestone seat since it’ll work as a long rear facing (hopefully we can make it at least past 3 years rear-facing, aiming for 4 years) seat then turn around for forward facing high back booster and then a belt positioning booster later. It’s $249.99 at Buy Buy Baby but with a 20% off coupon it’ll be $199.99. What a steal. Ha.
- By the way for all you parents, KEEP YOUR KIDS REAR-FACING FOR AT LEAST 2 YEARS! State laws enforce a minimum but by no means is that what’s safe for your little ones! The AAP says a minimum of 2 years, preferably until 4 years. It does NOT matter if your kids’ legs are touching the seat, are crossed in their rear-facing seat, or up are high up resting on the seat!
- The reason is because the compression occurring with an impact jerk a baby’s neck forward at such great force that is really hard on a developing toddler’s growing spine. The mortality rates in crashes with a child forward-facing are significantly higher than those with rear-facing children. Most of the time the rear-facing children leave with a tiny scratch vs. major injuries and death.
I know about all kids do this, but when music is playing she stops what she’s doing to stare. Then she starts bouncing and smiling with glee!