13 Months!

This post is so late, it's nearly time to write the 14 month one! Since we don't have any more stickers for the months, I forgot to take a photo with Gemma and her lion. Hopefully I'll remember next month, although it's getting harder all the time to get her to stay still and pose! At 13 months, Gemma is doing something new almost every day and is so much fun! Here's a rundown of what she's been up to the past month!

-Gemma is always on the move! She crawls, climbs, and cruises all day long. She can push her walker toy really fast now, and always wants to walk holding our two (and lately can do one) hands. She can stand without holding onto anything for longer and longer, and she thinks it's hilarious to just fall backwards if she knows I'm behind her to catch her. She can climb into both of our chairs in the sitting room now, then stands up onto the seat and tries to climb over the backs of the chairs. We have patio doors in the sitting room and two of the bedrooms that have ledges that are the perfect height for Gemma to sit on. She can now stand up from sitting on the ledges on her own. I'd say it won't be too long before she takes some steps on her own!

-Gemma LOVES books now. She usually pulls all of them off of the shelf everyday, looks at them over and over, and brings them to us to read over and over! If one of us is sitting on the floor with her, she'll climb up into our lap with a book to read. Paul and I are both big readers, so it's great to us!

-She continues to love putting things into other things and has begun to stack her cups and blocks too. Her other favourite toys are her stacking rings and her pop up animal toy.

-Gemma has been giving the best hugs- she squeezes our necks really tight and usually pats our shoulder/back with one hand too. In the past couple of weeks, she's been giving kisses when asked too- she comes at us with a wide open mouth! It's so cute!

-I think she knows what a dog says now- we have a book called 'Doggies', and whenever we finish it, she always says 'raow, raow, raow'. She continues to say 'mama', 'dada', 'nigh nigh', and 'up', but mostly imitating. We think 'da da' might also be her form of thank you, as she says it a lot when you give her something.

-She enjoys going to creche (daycare), and always holds out her arms to the staff to take her when I drop her off. She's still not napping the greatest there- never takes a morning nap and has only had two afternoon naps longer than an hour. One day this week she only slept 15 minutes! She seems to make up for it on the days that she's home though. We usually have to wake her around 7:45, then we have to wake her after she's been sleeping for two hours for her morning nap.

-Unfortunately Gemma has gotten some colds since starting creche and needed her first course of antibiotics to kick a chest infection.

-A new favourite food is toasted cheese sandwiches. She also wants anything that we are eating! She will stand up next to us with her mouth open whenever Paul or I are eating anything!

-We are formula free! I took things rather slow switching to milk since she had milk protein intolerance as a little baby and she was also starting creche around her first birthday. We've been on milk for over a week now with no problems. She's still taking it out of a bottle, but we're going to transition to a sippy cup when we're back from Louisburgh in a little over a week (more on that later).

-Gemma still has 6 teeth.

-Gemma has taken her first trip to Louisburgh without mommy and daddy this weekend! She went with Paul's mom, sister, and brother-in-law. Mayo plays in the All-Ireland Gaelic Football final on Sunday here in Dublin, so Paul and I will be going to the game. I'll head down to Louisburgh on Monday, then Paul will be down later in the week depending on work. We have a wedding down there on Friday and will all be heading back to Dublin on Sunday.

Even though it's nice to have a little break, sleep in, and have some time for just Paul and me, I'm missing Gemma like crazy! She is such a joy, we love her more than words can say. Here are photos from the past month:
















This breadstick can fit in my ear!






My finger fits in my nose, and it's hilarious!









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