Emmy had her one year check-up on Monday, May 10th. She weighed 16 lbs 1 oz and was 27 inches tall. She's still super tiny, less than 5th percentile, but still following her own little growth curve. Dr. J. was very pleased with her progress and her nutrition, though she does want us to keep her on formula (we have also started her on some whole milk) until she's 14-15 months old, mainly for the extra calories. Oh well, thought we were done spending money on formula!!
Emmy has been pulling up for a while now and she's gotten good at her "crawl-flopping" version of a crawl that she does. She's quite fast and man, that kid is going to have some upper body strength! We thought she many not crawl "normally" (and a lot of kids don't) but suddenly earlier this week she started doing a little normal crawling! She still can get around fastest with her crawl-flop (dubbed the worm by my cousins this past weekend) and fortunately we captured some of her moves on video earlier this week.
Sunday evening she suddenly (finally!) managed to get herself back to a seated position from lying down. Until now if she wanted to sit back up after scooting around, she'd pull herself up, then sit herself back down (pretty ingenious in my opinion). I think this helped spur the regular crawl, too.
She also decided on Monday that, okay, fine, she would pick her bottle up and feed herself. She would hold her bottle essentially if you made her, which often necessitated leaning back her high chair or laying her on the floor or propping her on a pillow. She still has a little trouble sometimes tilting her bottle up enough, and ultimately she'd still prefer you hold it for her, but finally the kid will feed herself! Now if she'd just use a sippy cup. She's mostly interested in chewing on them and throwing them on the floor. She feeds herself finger foods almost exclusively now, and if I'd let her she would feed herself things like yogurt by just dipping her fingers in the bowl and licking them. Unfortunately, this isn't very effective and is quite messy, so I try to get as much in her on a spoon as possible. Occasionally she'll "help" me feed her with a spoon, but mostly she wants to sling the spoon around, which is a no-no with food on it.
I can see in the past week, with the advent of her starting to sit herself up, that she's also getting better and better at pulling herself up. She can reach a little higher (I think she has gotten taller in the last 3 weeks, although we haven't measured her) and does it a little more quickly. She has been walking with help since March and she can walk holding your hands or holding onto the ottoperson, an end table, her walking toy, the laundry basket, etc. She wants to walk by herself SO BADLY. She will often let go of whatever she's holding on to and attempt to walk but inevitably after one step she's on the floor. She has become more graceful and careful in her falls, though.
She is still quite the dancer when she hears music and has started clapping a lot. Aunt Janis managed to get her to clap doing patty-cake after several hours in the car. She also has learned to shake her head no-no. She really thinks this is funny. She shakes "no-no" for just about anything. If we tell her no-no she shakes her head, sometimes smiles at us, then usually goes right back to doing whatever it was we just said no-no to. She is now very interested in power cords and outlets (Lord help us) and she loves to pull herself up in the bathtub. These things get her in the most trouble, obviously, since they are the most dangerous. It's amazing how fast she can get herself up in the tub!
Emmy loves, loves, loves to be outside! She likes to play in the grass, and she loves her swing. David, Jennifer, and Jackson gave it to us when Emmy was born and so we put it up this spring. If she catches sight of the swing when we're outside, well, you HAVE to go swing for a while. Unfortunately she is also very allergic to mosquitoes and we have a lot of them already so we're constantly putting on bug spray. No fun!
She has enjoyed swimming the last couple of weeks. Our neighbors have a small saltwater pool that is just perfect for a quick dip and they let us use it whenever we want. We've been swimming a couple of times already and we went swimming when we were in Ocean Isle last weekend at Aunt Priscilla and Uncle W.C.'s (more on that trip later).
Emmy loves to watch running water. The bathtub, a fountain, the sprinklers, and of course the OCEAN are all great sources of entertainment. She also loves to watch me cooking. She sit on my hip and watch something simmering or me stirring a pot or whatever for as long as I'll let her. The problem is a) it's hard to cook with a child on your hip and b) hot stoves and knives don't make for child-friendly activities, so it's hard to have her in the kitchen with me for long.
Emmy is now on a big Mama kick. She wants Mama a lot, especially when we're in a big crowd. Don't get me wrong, she loves her Daddy and other friends and family (and baby-sitters!) she's familiar with, and she'll go to them, but then usually she will want to come right back to Mama. Don't get me wrong, it's good for my ego, but sometimes a little stressful! She's a bit more wary of strangers or people she doesn't remember as well but she usually warms up pretty quickly.
It's amazing to see progress sometimes overnight in what she learns. She's such a fun baby/toddler!
Happy Father's Day to the best Daddies I know! Charles go to spend a couple of days with his Dad earlier this week (and his Mom, of course, who is doing pretty well with her knee replacement recovery) and I spent Friday night with my Dad (and Mom and Mer). 
