One Year Old! (January 21, 2011)

Scarlett the Starlet is one year old! It's amazing what a difference a year makes.

January 21, 2010:



January 21, 2011:



Scarlett is doing great, and although her vocabulary hasn't really changed much (still just "Mama," "yeah," and the occasional "bye" or "hi"), she clearly understands a ton of words. The list includes yogurt, milk, puffs, cookie, baby (for her doll), and Elmo. She can answer several questions, like "are you done?", "more?", and "do you want up/down?" by saying "yeah" and nodding her head yes or by shaking her head no.

In addition to classic kisses and blowing kisses, she's added "nose kisses" to her repertoire. Some of her new tricks at bath time include blowing bubbles in the bath water and playing "spiders in the net," which involves, well ... putting plastic spiders in a net. What's impressive (at least to me, but then again I'm her Mom and programmed to be impressed by just about anything she does) is that she can pick out the spiders from her various other bath toys and just puts those in the net. That's raw talent right there.

One funny thing she likes to do is hold her hand up in the air like the Pope blessing a crowd. I like to think she inherited it from her great-grandmother Maw Maw who used to pose like this for dramatic effect whenever she was having her picture taken.



Scarlett likes to tease. You'll ask for something -- like, "Can I have your toy?" and she'll shake her head yes and start to hand it to you. But then at the last minute when you're just about to grab it she snatches it away and laughs hysterically.

Scarlett's first birthday party was this weekend, and she had a blast. Another post will cover the party in more detail, but one tidbit worth mentioning is that Scarlett ate her ENTIRE CAKE. Granted, it was her personal smash cake and it was pretty small. But it was still an ENTIRE CAKE. She started off picking at it daintily, but then she just let loose and went to town, digging in and eating it by the handful. Here's a sneak preview of her eating the cake as well as the aftermath, with her hands raised in sugar-crazed victory (hey, it's quite an accomplishment to eat an entire cake in one sitting). Note the wild hair in the first photo thanks to some stray chocolate cake and icing and the wet hair in the second photo from trying to clean off the chocolate cake and icing.





And here are some more photos from Scarlett's first birthday. (For any monthly photo-shoot fans, you'll be pleased to know that I ordered some more stickers that go through 24 months.)

"How old am I again? Oh, that's right. 12 months old."



Blowing birthday kisses.



Our sweet birthday girl.



Happy Birthday, Scarlett!

Nothing Runs Like a Deere

Scarlett's Grandpa is always a hit with the kids because (among other reasons) he gives tractor rides. Scarlett's still too little to ride in the little trailer he pulls behind the tractor, so she got to take her first ride over Thanksgiving in her Grandpa's lap. She did great and even went for a second go-round!

Fun times with Grandpa.



Patrolling the property.



Riding off into the sunset.

The Crab Crawl

Scarlett has the craziest crawl. She curls one leg up under her, kicks the other leg out and drag/pulls herself forward with the assistance of one arm. She didn't start off crawling this way; she originally did the traditional on your hands and knees style crawl. But the crab crawl evolved over time as a way to (a) not hurt her knees on the wood floor, and (b) not let go of whatever object she happened to be holding in one of her hands. Except now she does it no matter what surface she's on and whether or not she has something in her hand, and the only time she crawls old-school style is if she needs to make an exceptionally quick get away. I figure once she starts walking she'll abandon crawling altogether, so I got it on video this weekend. I present you with the first video posting on the blog: the "Crab Crawl," a/k/a the "Lazy Crawl."



(Still working out the kinks on posting videos ... it's off center and both the blog music and audio play at the same time. But I'm fairly impressed that I figured out to post it at all, so I'll focus on that.)