JUNE BUG IS ONE!
Last week Juno celebrated her first Thanksgiving and then five days later turned ONE. This year has flown by and my heart can hardly handle that my baby is now a toddler. How did this happen? On Sunday we celebrated Juno’s first birthday with our immediate families who came over for tacos, cake and presents. Yaya made Juno the cutest little strawberry bundt cake. Juno wasn’t sure what to think of the cake, but she ate a sprinkle or two and tried the frosting. Juno liked opening her presents and playing with her cousins best of all. Juno got blocks, books, her first baby doll, some puzzles, new sunglasses and a stinking cute snowsuit (see her 12 month photos below). Now for Christmas she needs absolutely nothing, which I think will fly this year, but in the future maybe not so much. Oh, December birthdays! It was the perfect way to celebrate our girl’s first year of life. She brings so much happiness, joy, and LIFE to our lives and, simply put, this has been the absolute best year yet.
On Thursday we had Juno’s one year old well-check with her pediatrician and we are so blessed that our girl is healthy and growing. She weighs 16 pounds 13 ounces and is about 28 inches tall, although she was so wiggly during her height measurement that we didn’t get a super accurate reading. This growing girl has jumped up to the 9th percentile for weight and we are so impressed! She is still wearing size three diapers and fits in clothes anywhere from 3-6 months to 9 months. She’s not quite in 12 month clothes yet and there are some things that still fit her in the 3 month category .. ha! Speaking of growing, we just ordered Juno convertible car seats for both of our cars and we are excited for them to get here! While she would probably still fit in her infant seat for a while longer (our infant seat has a limit of 30 pounds or 30 inches, whichever happens first), we figured she’s getting somewhat close to the height limit and she’s just so dang heavy when we are constantly lifting in and out the infant seat from the car to the house and everywhere we go. Not to mention we took full advantage of the Black Friday car seat deals … I’m excited to see how she likes it once they come!
This month Juno has been practicing her walking. She’s still a bit hesitant when we let go of her hands, but every so often she will take a few steps when I’m holding out my arms ready to catch her. I think she will be full on walking fairly soon. She now can stand for longer periods of time without holding onto anything and she continues to walk along all the furniture and with her walkers, which she loves. Some of Juno’s other favorite things right now are clapping, pointing and doing “somersaults”. She tucks her head and rolls to the side and then gets so darn proud of herself, kicking her legs and waving her arms with a huge grin on her face.
As far as sleep goes, this past month has still been pretty rough (up every two hours or so alllll night long), but I will say she is starting to nap a lot better all of the sudden, which has been SO nice. For the last week or so, she’s been taking two naps a day and one of the two has been in her crib and she’s been staying asleep anywhere from an hour to two hours. And I don’t want to jinx it, but she today she napped for two and a half hours! Say what?! I think she may be getting close to transitioning to one nap a day now that she’s been napping better, but it might be too soon to really tell. It’s been so nice to be able to shower, take care of myself, clean the house, work, edit … all of the things that I usually can never do in a day! As far as night sleep goes, we have just gotten into some bad habits that we need to desperately break. That’s next up on our agenda so that this momma can maybe get longer than a 2-4 hour stretch of sleep at a time. It’s been over a year since I’ve slept all night … I think the absolute longest stretch of sleep that I’ve gotten since Juno’s been born is about 6 hours and that’s been very few and far between, but she is 100% worth it and I wouldn’t trade it for the world. The pediatrician says we need to do some tough love because she is big enough and old enough to go at least ten hours at night. 10 HOURS OF SLEEP, I can’t even imagine! Some major catch-up rest is in our near future!
Juno has become such a good eater and one of her favorite things to do is to eat! Stick her in her high chair with some food and she will sit there and eat for up to an hour — it’s great! She now has three meals a day plus a snack or two everyday and while she doesn’t eat a lot in terms of quantity she sure does love it. With all these solids though has come some more tummy troubles. The constipation since solids has been rough and we are still figuring out how to best help her tummy. Between prunes and prune juice, fiber and a probiotic everyday, we still were having to do suppositories more than we wanted to so now we’ve had to start some other tummy medicine. Also, despite Juno’s love for cheese, we have had to completely stop dairy again because not only was it not helping her tummy but we think it was also contributing to her poor sleep over the last couple of months. In terms of actual allergies, Juno now has to stay away from tomatoes in addition to avocados and Parmesan cheese (which is fine since we’ve given up all dairy again). Tomatoes are the newest food she’s tried that cause a red patches and a rash all around her mouth, cheeks and neck. I’m still breastfeeding and want to for a while longer, but I am hoping to start working on weaning her during the days here soon so that I can at least stop pumping. Since I’ve been pumping from literally day one of having Juno since she was early and didn’t know how to suck at first, I’ve been blessed to be able to donate quite a bit of milk to the Mother’s Milk Bank because Juno would never be able to drink all of the milk that continually fills our freezer. It’s been so nice to be able to give back since we used donor milk when Juno was first born while in the hospital. My plan is to slowly wean Juno during her day-time feeds and once that has happened, I’ll make one last donation to MMB. Since we’ve given up dairy, we will be transitioning her to a specific brand of almond milk that is high in fat that our pediatrician would like her on. Hopefully it’ll be a smooth transition and she can eventually have that during the days and then I can still nurse her morning, evening and night. We will see how it goes!
Juno is really getting into the holiday spirit this year. This is technically Juno’s second Christmas but it’s the first Christmas where she has gotten to enjoy all the Christmas things. Last year we didn’t even put up a Christmas tree since we had a newborn. Juno loves all the decorations, lights and ornaments and she loves to dance to the Christmas music too. We are excited for Juno to meet Santa for the first time this year and to start some new traditions this year as well.
We are so in love with Juno Elizabeth. We can’t believe we have a one year old, but I honestly feel like each month gets more and more fun. This age is so stinking cute — her personality has really come out, she is constantly giggling, smiling and making faces and her smile brightens our hearts all day long. We love her snuggles (maybe a little too much — see the section about our terrible sleep habits above) and we think she’s practically perfect in every way. Her hair is coming in thick and full. Her bald spot is completely gone on the back of her head and her hair has gotten so long that it doesn’t stick straight up anymore and is laying flat instead. It’s definitely getting darker but still has hints of red in it, especially when she’s out in the sun. She still only has two teeth, which she loves to brush using her electric toothbrush, and her big blue eyes are as blue as ever. Her eyelashes are still the longest eyelashes you will ever see. Her nose and ears are so cute and little. She’s looking more and more like my baby pictures and she most certainly has similar facial expressions and the same personality as me — we are in trouble, we know). Juno has become such an easy baby. She is so happy and content almost all of the time. She definitely has gotten easier and easier with each month that goes by. She’s letting more people hold her now (she will finally let her Papa hold her … he’s basically had to wait an entire year) and we even took her to Sunday school for the first time a couple of weeks ago and didn’t even have to pick her up early because she was able to calm down after a little while. Her screaming fits have mostly been replaced by the occasional temper tantrum where she throws her had back, screams and kicks her legs, but we will happily take these tantrums over the colicky baby that we had for many months. A couple things still make her really upset — getting changed, when mom leaves the room or has to drop her off somewhere (besides Yaya’s house, which she loves) and waking up from naps. It takes quite a while for this little one to warm up after waking up, which is exactly how her momma feels after naps too. Juno continues to love baths, car rides, walks, music (as soon as a song comes on, you will find her dancing), Remington and reading books.
Goodness, this recap was a long one, but I’m so glad to have 12 months worth of notes about our girl to look back on. Going forward, I'm thinking I’ll write every three to six months or whenever the mood strikes. I’ve been so nostalgic lately as memories from one year ago pop up on my phone so I’ll include some of Juno’s very first photos below along with some photos from her birthday party and her 12 month photos as well.
12 Months of Juno
One Year Ago
First Birthday Party
12 Months Old
(and the cutest snowsuit you will ever see)
Juno, we love you so, so much. We love every single little thing about you. Not a day goes by that we don’t say “I can’t believe the Lord gave you to us”. Before bed every night we say prayers over you and remind you that you are smart, kind, important, loved, strong, beautiful inside and out, worthy, more than enough and created in God’s image to do amazing things. We hope you will never forget any of these things. We will support you always and help guide you the best we can. This has been the best year of our lives and we can’t wait to watch you grow over the years to come. You are our everything. Happy first birthday, sweet June Bug. We love you, baby girl!