one year!

Mercy is one! She has changed so much in her first year. We have seen her as a content newborn for her first week of life, colicky and crying all the time until she turned about four months (a traumatizing time for her mother), generally happy and absolutely adorable during her 5th and 6th months, constantly sick with colds and ear infections from 6 months onward, developing an extremely bright and inquisitive nature around 7 months and impressing us with her mind and charm ever since. We have seen her get really chubby during her second month of life and maintain said chub until around 8 months, when she began moving non-stop. At this age, she is our beautiful, very smart, friendly and charming, curious, energetic, spirited little girl with striking, bright blue eyes and a huge smile. We are so proud that she is ours. She brings light to all those around her.

At her one year birthday, Mercy:

weighed exactly 20 pounds (50%)  and was 30 inches tall (79%). Her head circumference was only in the 37%, which alarmed the doctor enough to measure it again, but when she heard she knew fifteen words, she knew it wasn't a worry. I think both Tim and I have smaller heads anyway.

 seems to be pretty bright. At her one year birthday, she could use 16 words correctly (not just repeating them after they're spoken, but using them spontaneously herself). Those words are: hi, bye bye, ball (bah), baby (bah bah), flower (wowah), pineapple (popple), cheese (eese), banana (nana), more (moh), no (NONONONONONO!!!), bible--which she calls every book--, mama, dada, cigar (gar), mailman (meh meh), yay. As I'm typing this (a couple weeks after her first birthday), she's already saying at least 7 more (moon, duck, cracker, avocado, glasses, pool, bottle (for water bottle), knee, "I did it!" (when she gets to the top of the stairs).

can tell you where many body parts are: head, hair, eyes, mouth, teeth, ear, belly, thigh, knee, foot, hand, arm.

can make the following animal noises when asked, if she's feeling generous: tiger, bird, fish, elephant, dog, cow, sheep, duck.

is not walking yet. She is beginning to be  more interested in it. She'll actually let you hold her hands to walk now.

still only has her two bottom teeth.

started to be called by her middle name. I call her Mercy Bay about half the time now.

is obsessed with climbing the stairs. I really need to get some baby gates. If I set her down in the living room, sometimes she plays, but often she crawls immediately to the stairs and starts climbing. I walk over and say, "what are you doing?" and she flashes a huge, mischievous smile and says "Hi" really loudly, as if her cuteness will supersede not being allowed to climb the stairs.

does lots of tricks. When she hears an airplane  (which is often because there is a tiny airport in Westerly that has small airplanes), she points to the sky and makes an airplane noise. She yodels (I know; it's a weird trick for a baby). If you give her a pen or something similarly shaped, she sticks it in her mouth and takes her hands away like it's a cigar and shakes her head (see below video). And she calls pens "gar" sometimes. When she gets to the top of the stairs after climbing them, she sits down and shakes her fists in the air like she won something. When you ask her what a clock says she waves her finger back and forth and says 'tic, toc.' My sister Kelsie taught her to make this funny monkey face from the movie Dunston Checks In (ever heard of it? ahaha. It's legendary in my family), which involves opening and closing her jaw rapidly and showing her teeth. If you ask her to "do peace," she'll give you the peace sign. Tim sometimes gets her to "do Nixon" and she'll do peace signs with both hands. She holds up random objects to her ear like they're phones and waits for you to do the same and talk to her. The best is when she uses her foot as a phone.

Mercy does "airplane"

cigar trick

yodeling

's new favorite foods she likes are hard boiled eggs (only the white part), fish cakes (like crab cakes but with fish) and ice cream, of course.

is still nursing. I thought she was starting to wean herself a few weeks before she turned one, but it was only a phase. She nurses about 3-4 times a day (and sometimes at night if she's sick).

had another ear infection, bringing her total to eight since Christmas. She also had Roseola.

began going to the nursery during church.

is incredibly social still and loves being around people. Yesterday we were waiting for a friends outside the YMCA for about 20 minutes, and she was perfectly happy standing near the door and greeting everyone with waves, smiles and "Hi's" and then saying "bye bye." She literally says 'hi' to everyone she sees and will say it multiple time to the same person and wave multiple times as well. She's enamored with people (and vice versa).  Tim recently took her out shopping (which doesn't happen often because when he's home, I usually tag along with the two of them), and when he came home, he remarked how much he likes taking her out because she's so adorable in her interaction with the public and he likes hearing all of people's comments about her.

loves guacamole

Loves the beach. She loves playing with the sand, being dipped in the water, the seagulls, the breeze, all the other people to watch and wave to, seaweed. She might be happiest at the beach. It's a good thing we moved here.

favorite pastime: watching the Watch Hill carousel

Photos from her one year birthday:

wowah!