Alia is 13 months old!

This month has flown by. We spent the majority of the month in Turkey, and what a great time that was for all of us, Alia especially. I mentioned last month what a wonderful impact having all the family around Alia was, and the continued contact with family and friends just got better and better.



Alia's one year check up proved that I was not crazy...she was in fact growing like a weed over the last few months...3 inches total since her last visit (she's just shy of 33" tall), as well as a 2 pound gain (weighing in just over 25 pounds). That's our little greater-than-95th-percentile girl!

This month, Alia showed us that she loves music. Her favorite CD is Baby Beluga by Raffi, to which she keeps the beat with an extended index finger. While she likes just about every song on the CD (Mommy fast forwards past the religious crap) her favorite songs are Baby Beluga and Joshua Giraffe. All I have to do is turn it on and watch as her gorgeous little face lights up and smiles with an expression that says, "heeeey! I know this song! I love this song!!!"

Earlier this week, Alia took those first "come to Mommy steps" across her bedroom. Actually, to be honest, Mommy was holding her favorite possession in the whole wide world, Froggy, so really they were the "come to Froggy" steps, but I'll take what I can get. And later in the week, she repeated this feat only this time, she walked twice as far, beaming the whole way, arms outreached to me (or was it her hair barrette?). My heart melted. Alia still isn't comfortable walking around as her first choice, but she now grabs an extended finger and will walk with us across the room. But in a hurry? It's back to the good ol' walrus crawl, which is surprisingly very fast!

Speaking of being on two feet, Alia loves scooting along the furniture, walls, chairs, coffee tables....you name it. She tirelessly removes magnets from the washing machine. She pulls them all down, and then looks at me like "well? What are you waiting for!? Put them back on." And while I've tried to show her that she is capable of putting the magnets back on the washer, apparently it just isn't the same.

Alia is very much enjoying her new face-forward car seat. No longer does she look like an overgrown toddler crammed into an infant seat...once again, she looks petite while riding in her big, cushy seat. And facing forward is the best...she constantly interacts with me with lots of smiles. She loves it when I ask her "Where are your feet? ...Ears? ....Nose? ...Hands?" She loves to demonstrate and is so proud to get them right. The funny thing is that rather than pointing to her nose, she exhales heavily through her nose, which means that sometimes you get a prize with that request.

Alia is much more vocal this month....she says four real words, but her favorites remain "wi-doo wi-doo wi-doo" and "wi-joo, wi-joo, wi-joo" in addition to pointing at something and saying "oy oy oy oy". What these things mean, we do not know, but she has a very sweet soft voice and I'm happy to try to decipher!

This month, Alia has learned that our neighbor's fountain is just about the most interesting thing there is...it's basically a slab or rock with water streaming down the sides. Alia likes to sit directly next to it and feel the water streaming over the rock. She always ends up stripped to her diaper because everything she was wearing gets soaked. But she doesn't mind...it's a great way for her to spend 20 minutes!

Finally, upon my return from Turkey, I was happy to see that the video monitor arrived. I ordered it with the new baby in mind, as an upgrade to our former borrowed audio monitor. Well let's just say I don't know how I survived without this device. Now I know what's going on in there. I don't have to risk cracking the door to check that she's still sleeping and risk waking her. And on the flip side, I'm amazed at how often she wakes and talks with her Froggy and other animals and is happy to hang out for awhile on her own. If there's one purchase I strongly recommend new Moms, it's a video monitor. The one I bought was the Summer monitor from Costco...it has 2 cameras and 2 monitors. I love it!

Alia is still Daddy's little girl. Every day, she enjoys sitting on the front porch and waiting for Daddy to drive up. She points up the empty road and says "wi-joo wi-joo wi-joo" and when his silver car finally emerges from around the bend, she claps and smiles and can't wait! Once Daddy's in the driveway, Alia loves to "drive" the car into the garage on Daddy's lap. Mainly this involves her slapping the steering wheel, but c'mon. She's only 13 months old!

And did I mention? She now talks on the "phone"?