The Pearce Place: 13 Months

10 days later, here is Ainsley's 13 month post. Now that she has reached the big ONE year, I haven't been as persistent on getting new posts up. They aren't any less important. I guess I just lost some of the enthusiasm I had had in keeping up with it! What a difference a month has made. Technically, we have an 11 month and 3 week old (given she had been born near her due date). And what has been interesting is that her 1 year-old-ness has really started to come to life in just the last week and 1/2. Yes, our sweet little, carefree, go with the flow, serious Ainsley has turned into a food throwing, screaming loving, very talkative, yet hilarious, hilarious, hilarious little girl. She has started picking up on so many things, imitating us all of the time, and knowing that when she does something and we crack up at her it was funny and she will continue to do it over...and over... and over again. Our little clown has a great big fun loving personality that continues to amaze us every single day. And as if I couldn't say enough about this precious girl, here are a few more things Ainsley is now doing at 13 months:

~I call her my Little Miss Piggy. This girl is a GREAT eater and will now pretty much eat anything we offer her! I still have a few things on my list to try in the near future (like peanut butter, which I'm sure she will love).

~Absolute favorite foods (but will eat most anything): chicken, burger, steak, cheese, grapes, BANANAS, grilled cheese sandwich, green beans, mac-n-cheese, carrots, turkey, ham, yogurt, pasta, and pizza

~EVERY time she hears music ANYWHERE we are, she will start dancing and then proceed to look right at us with a huge grin to get a reaction of "Yay! Dance to the music!"

~She randomly started clapping again. She went through a short phase around 8-9 months of clapping and then she quit doing it. She seems to be this way with a lot of things. I think she gets tired of doing what is new at the time, so it comes and goes in phases.

~Thinks it's a fun thing to spit... (and yes, we may or may not be encouraging it).

~Makes a hilarious face we have named "squooshy face" and will usually do it on command.

~Completely on a sippy cup as of May 13th. Yippee!!! (Although, putting her bottles all away was a very sad moment for me :(

~And BIGGEST event to date....

Ainsley took her first TRUE and CONTROLLED steps on May 23rd! I was at home with her alone and really wasn't expecting it. She usually takes maybe two unsteady steps and then falls towards the person in front of her. This time she wasn't really focused on it, so I let go of her fingers just to see if she would stand alone and off she went 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10 steps (straight towards the marble fireplace, so I had to stop her). Brantley was so bummed he wasn't there when I called and told him because we've both been working on it with her at night. However, don't be fooled, the most steps we've gotten her to take since then has been 5 to 6, but her balance is definitely getting stronger. She also thinks it's funny just to fall towards the person in front of or behind her. So we've had to do a lot of catching and have also had a few times where we just quite didn't make it in time....

So that's what's been going on in our house the last month and a half. I feel that we officially have a toddler on our hands and we are finally baby proofing our house this weekend. (Which our pediatrician actually had told us to do by this past Thanksgiving. Ha.)

~13 Months~

Ainsley could walk around the couches and big ottoman literally all day. She is rarely sitting. So we keep a big pile of toys easily accessible at those two places.