Monday 30 September 2019

A little toddler update @16 months!


Addison Mae, turned 16 months old on the 9th of this month! I remember doing a blog post for Ella when she reached this age, and so I thought it would be fun to do a comparison one for Addi! I also feel like this age is just so fun, with so many new things Addi is learning to do and I just want to document it all so I don't forget it! 



So, she is now a walker! She took her very first steps on the 12th June and then spent a good few months just practicing taking a few steps here and there, and it wasn't until just before she turned 15 months (on the 6th August) that she started walking across rooms and then walking all over the show! 



I feel like once they walk, they are just their own little person already...and the baby days are gone, and that is so bittersweet for me!! but I do love to watch her waddle all over the place!

Along with walking also comes lots of talking! 

Here are the words that Addi is saying:

Mama/Mummy
Dada/Daddy
Addi
Ella
Bubba
Ta
Thank you
Hiya
Buh-bye
Boo
Booyah!
Ta-da
All done
More
Amen
Tidy (we hand her a wet wipe after dinner and she loves to clean up the surface of her highchair whilst saying 'tidy, tidy' she also says it while she's putting her bath toys away or tidying toys up in the playroom!)

and the sounds she can make:

dog
monkey
snake
mouse
duck
chicken
sheep
cow
snoring

The songs she enjoys doing the actions/sounds to:

Wind the Bobbin' Up
Wheels on the Bus
Sleeping Bunnies
Old Macdonald had a Farm
If you're Happy and you Know it



Dog is still her favourite sound to make, and I'm pretty sure it's her fave animal too.  She is dog obsessed! 


If there is a dog when we're out and about, you can bet Addison is right there beside it petting it and showing it love! It makes me so sad, because I know she would just be adoring Milo daily if he was still here with us.  

She isn't just partial to dogs, 


and pretty much loves all animals.  


She takes after her daddy and her big sister in that way!


She also loves bubbles...


and oh man does she love the water! 


She had her first official beach day in North Berwick on our hottest day of the year, and she got stuck right in - literally.  She just wanted to constantly run into the water, deeper and deeper...she has no fear! scarily enough! 


So all that playing around definitely tired her out! 


We've had a lot of fun water play in the garden too this summer!


Can you just see how joyful she is in the photo below?!


and she also goes swimming with Daddy and Ella on Wednesday evenings which she just adores, 


even though she apparently drinks half of the pool in the process! 


Even bath time is just hilariously fun for her! 



Whilst we're talking about her loves, I would say even above her love of water has to be her love for books!! She is book CRAZY! I thought Ella loved books as a toddler, and she did, but man alive, Addison takes it to the next level! She literally will make you read every book to her in our house (the ones with flaps and touchy feely bits) and then once you've gone through stack after stack...I'm talking 40+ books, she will ask for more and want you to read them all again! 


She has definite favourites! and so if she spots her favourite in the stack you are reading she will make you whizz through the other ones just turning to the back page and saying all done until you get to the one she wants! Her current fave is a book about emotions and on each different page the character does a happy face, sad face, angry face, naughty face etc... and she loves to watch my face as I do each emotion and she likes to replicate them too! It's super cute.


She loves to 'unpack' things! Give her a foreign handbag to rummage through and she's in her element, here she is unpacking all the nappies out of the new packet (less helpful!) but she does love to unpack groceries too and hands me each one...


and knows to tuck into the baguette first before unpacking! She is bread obsessed just like her Mama.


She is a bit of a daredevil, and much prefers the walking up part of the slide to the sliding down! She loves to climb and is pretty adventurous, she likes to get into anything and everything...and I feel like she will be the child who I will find scribbling on walls! I have found her a few times drawing on the floor, but luckily it's just laminate so it comes off with wipes! 


because one of her other obsessions is colouring! I'm pretty sure if you gave her free reign of what to do, if she had read through all the books already, she would want to colour! She loves sitting at our little art and craft table and colouring away.  Sometimes she sits alongside Ella and they create pictures together and it's so cute to see...but she also really likes to have the whole art and craft station to herself and go wild with it! 


She loves buttons! especially on the washing machine and oven! and everytime we come into the house she insists on pushing the doorbell, and then switching on and off the light in the entrance hall! 


She is also really into sunglasses, hats and shoes! 


and babies! Oh man, does she love babies! 


She loves to push them around in her pram, at high speeds! 


and to feed them ever so lovingly, she also strokes their heads too when they cry! It's adorable


She's not just partial to the fake kind, she was fascinated with a lovely little baby Max we met at craft club the other week.  She kept going over to his pram where he was sleeping and putting her arms up to his mum (who she'd never met before!) for the mum to lift her up and show her the baby! She would then make a shhh sound because he was sleeping, and then gently pat his leg! It was too precious! She must have done that over and over at least 8 times! 


She's become a bit of a fusspot with eating recently.  She used to eat anything and everything, and these days she's just all about blueberries and cheese!! and of course...we can't talk about her loves without talking about chocolate! She for sure has inherited our family sweet tooth! 


I introduced her to the joys of walking on crunchy autumn leaves the other day, and she loved throwing them up in the air too, she seems to be so at home out in nature! 


Another favourite thing to do is to climb each individual log stump we have out the front of our house, she scales each one like it's a mountain and then when she manages to stand up on top of it she proclaims 'Ta-da'! with great enthusiasm! Did I mention she has to do this every time we return from being out in the car somewhere...which is quite a lengthy process as you can imagine! 


I also introduced her to the joys of puddle jumping!! I knew it was going to be hit.  I had been waiting for her feet to grow to order some wellies that would fit...and then it was go time! She loved testing them out in some small puddles outside our house but I knew if we headed to Bowmont Forest we'd get some real deal puddles! 


Can you even handle how adorable this puddle jumper is??! 


I feel like I've said every single thing is her favourite, but really she has a lot of favourites! I guess she just loves life! The last thing I wanted to mention was just how much she loves an invite into big sister's room! An invite, because normally she's banned! Since she has little routines as soon as she gets into Ella's room that consists of emptying out all her drawers of hairbands on the floor, ripping her stickers of achievement off the wall, dumping out all her clothes from their drawers and so the list goes on, you get the idea! but on a rare occasion Ella will invite her in...to endure the mayhem, and you've never seen such a gleeful face toddling down the corridor heading towards Ella's bedroom door! 


Now the toddler chaos has commenced, she is certainly not quite as adored by Ella as she used to be! She breaks up things Ella makes/builds, or colours on her pictures etc... which is obviously annoying for any 5 year old! 


but they still definitely have plenty of sweet moments too! with Ella often telling her she is the best little sister she could have ever wished for!


Love these little blondies of mine so so much!

Saturday 8 June 2019

Officially - 12 months old!

 

I've had a whole month now to let this sink in.  Addison is one! I have a one year old! My baby is no more.  I felt so emotional leading up to it, not being ready to part with all her baby ways...but actually I forgot just how fun one year olds are and so I am just loving this stage of her right now! 


She is such a little character!


All smiles...


and curls, and teeth!! 


How I love those curls! Although we have been trying out some new hairstyles recently to try and tame the mane! 


Such as this teeny tiny cutesie ponytail! 


This topknot! 


and these adorable bunches! 


I'm also rather partial to her in her little summer hat! 


or in her mini bike helmet!


There were a few firsts this month...like Addi's first visit to a farm park! Considering how much she loves animals we knew it was going to do down well.  She was very excited about seeing the real deal,


and got stuck right in there petting the bunnies too! 


She also got her first taste of a wave pool as we went for a family swim at Dunbar.  We sat in the shallow end and she kicked her legs so furiously as the waves came crashing down where we sat, it was so sweet.


Easter brought some of her first tastes of chocolate, and as the smile will tell it was a definite thumbs up!!

She loves little spaces, she pulled herself up on a dining room chair one day and then was hiding out under the table, peeking out at me, feeling very pleased with herself! She was just so cute that I had to take a pic!


She is always pulling herself up on something these days, 


and it always takes me back a little at just how grown up she looks standing around! 


One day at the garden centre, she was crawling around whilst I browsed some things on the shelf and next minute she had pulled herself up next to the bath bombs and she proceeded to pull them out one by one and then drop them on the floor!! Luckily there were no breakages, but she was so pleased with herself! Cheeky monkey.


She also loves to be outdoors! At her parents evening, the nursery staff said being out in the garden area is her favourite place to be! 


Whether she's pounding the pavements in her trike,


or picking bluebells,


or sifting through woodchips,


or cruising along her favourite sensory bridge at the park! 



or checking out the rhodos with Mommy! 


Everything is better with some fresh air according to Addison Mae...which is perfectly appropriate considering I named her 'Mae' as the meaning is 'goddess of spring growth' because everything started blooming the week she was born, and so it goes without saying that she's a nature lover! 


She has really begun associating things with one another this month.  I love when she surprises me with something I wouldn't expect.  I was putting away some laundry in her room one day, and she was playing on the floor.  She saw what I was doing, and promptly pulled her socks off and then stood up and put them away into the same drawer I was putting things into! Super clever! 


She has really been into stacking cups this month! She loves nothing more than to knock a tower down if you build it for her, 


but she has also gotten really good at putting each of the cups inside one another too.


Books are still her favourite, she will want you to read her a whole stack of them and then as soon as you are finished she wants them read all over again! Last month it was all about flaps, but this month she is really into pulling things up and pulling things out so the Bizzy Bear books that her big sister was in love with have become her new fave too! She got a whole pile as presents from Granny and has been loving them ever since.  She has also become very sure of the books she wants you to read and those she doesn't, if you start reading a book she's not interested in she will just grab on to it toss it to the side and then hand you the one she actually wants! 


One of her favourite new toys this month was her ball pool from Auntie Alli, ball pools are always the best part of soft play for her...


so we knew this was going to be a big hit! and of course big sister is loving it just as much!


Speaking of big sister, there is still a lot of love between these two, but also a lot of bickering.  It seems these days that whatever Addi is playing with, suddenly Ella wants it and visa versa! 


but hey ho, that's the way it goes with siblings isn't it! 


One minute they want matching pigtails,


and the next minute it's all tears and tantrums! 


and then smiles and snuggles again! 


and then Addi's into Ella's things again and the whole cycle starts over! 


but one night Ella wanted to help feed Addi some of her milk, and was very disappointed when she discovered that Addi feeds it to herself now! She was so sad about it, and went into her room and said a little prayer asking if she could stop being sad about Addi growing up! it was so cute! She told me that she just wishes Addi was still a baby and still needed our help to do everything!!


What cuties!

and of course what's a 12 month blog post without some birthday hoopla! 


Addi got into the birthday swing of things pretty quick, and loved being sung to in the morning when she woke up.


and really enjoyed ripping all the paper off her presents - more so than the presents themselves of course! Although Ella picked out this jumper all by herself as her gift for Addison and so was extra excited to give it to her! 


and matching dresses from my lovely friend Laura were a win all round! 
and what's a birthday without a party!


We celebrated with a Peter Rabbit theme, and I got this adorable little Peter Rabbit dress made for Addi, complete with Peter Rabbit bow! Didn't she wear it well!


and I was thrilled with these Peter Rabbit balloons! and of course the traditional monthly photo bunting that I love to do at the girls parties.


Addison was seriously loving the balloons, and then stayed up for at least 2 weeks after so they were like the gift that kept on giving! 


Ready for some party fun to begin!


What a spread!


The birthday girl seemed very pleased with her lunch! 


and then onto the best part - the cake! 


Seeing her little face as we sung happy birthday was probably my best bit of the day! She seemed to really know that something special was going on!


Then on to the scoffing! She really devoured every last crumb, which made this cake loving Mama so happy!


Games were played! 


Like pin the tail on the bunny! 


and we introduced Addi to the delights of pass the parcel.  Paper she was allowed to rip? she was down for that! 


and so that rounds up the whole last month.  


In the past 12 months of being Addison's mom, I've learnt that not every day is joyful (far from it! especially those never ending months of sleepless nights!) but that you can choose to find a joyful moment in each day. 

We waited a long time for her to join our family, and so I have tried so hard to savour all the moments - because although people warned me, I never realised how this time around time would go at double speed! so I've tried to just be present in every stage and just breathe in that baby smell of her skin when she's fresh out the bath, and soak in those cuddles on my chest, and the sparkle in her eyes when she masters a new skill!

You are so loved, Addison Mae, and you make our world brighter and more wonderful because you are a part of it!  

I can't wait to see who you become over the next 12 months!