Emilia is now 1 year old corrected

She is finally 1 year old corrected (Sep 8). She is not yet walking unsupported but she stands and walks holding on to things. She loves crawling up the stairs. She loves standing up and reaching for things that used to be completely out of her reach before. She can put toys back into the bins and drawers.  She likes pointing at pictures in the book. She can do the actions when we sing some songs.

Check out how she crawls up stairs (taken a while ago,so she does it much faster now)

 

Day care!

Emilia started day care full time two weeks ago. She had no problem transitioning, perhaps because we had gone there almost everyday during the summer. I am not going back to work until next Monday but I started her 2 weeks earlier just in case she needed more time to adjust.

It is sad to leave my darling with someone else all day long but surprisingly she is doing very well. Aside from not being able to nap very long, she eats and plays well. She is very sociable and does not have stranger anxiety (yet). She's such a trooper and I am so proud of her.

I asked the teacher in the infant room to take some pictures of Emilia during the day. Here are some:

12 month follow up clinic

As expected, the 12 month NICU follow-up clinic said Emilia was progressing nicely and as long as she made progress, there was no concern. Emilia played well with the PT at the clinic. She put toys in a cup, took them out of the cup, tried to stand up and climb up onto the toddler table, and so on. I knew she was doing well, but it's also comforting when someone else validates my thoughts.
Growth-wise, she's above average in head circumference, length, and of course weight! Yesterday's measurements showed 47cm of HC, 75.5cm of length, and 10.9kg of weight.

After the clinic, we visited the NICU and said hello to her nurses. Her primary nurse Tina was on day shift fortunately so she and Emilia got to cuddle too.

 A side note... my husband and I must have put our NICU memory waaaayyy back in our mind because 1) my husband couldn't even find the entrance to the parking lot where we used to park almost every single day of our 142 days in NICU, and 2) I pressed 6th floor on the elevetor and actually got off to realize it was a wrong floor. How could I forget the 7th floor!!?? I was in "7 South" for a week before Emilia was born. (7 South is the ward for preterm risk pregnancies)

Pulling to stand

Emilia started to pull to stand few weeks ago. First she did this while she was in the bath tub. She would hold onto the tub and stand up, and next she did it in the crib. I hear and see a lot of babies at this stage do actually stand up unsupported and cruise alone holding onto furniture.  Her gross motor skills may be a bit delayed but I am glad she is making progress each day and week. She also now kneels down, unsupported. She can take several steps forward as I hold her hands and ask her to walk too. In about a week, we have a follow up appointment with the NICU. I am already anxious about what they are going to say about her progress. Every time I feel like she's on track, the NICU follow-up seems to throw us back.

My baby's independence... sorry, it's not so welcome

Well, Emilia has shown me some independence past few weeks. I started to let her feed herself (whenever possible), meaning that she gets to choose what she wants to eat off the plate. She has experimented and tried different foods and has discovered her love for cheese (marble/cheddar). At the same time, she started to spit out half-chewed food if she doesn't want to eat it. She also shakes her head and clams her mouth to show me she doesn't want to eat certain food. Of course, being an 11-month-old girl, she is not very consistent in what she likes and dislikes. One day she spat out all the steamed carrots and two days laters, she gladly chomped down the same carrots I had kept in the fridge. So, what does she do if there is something she likes on the plate like marble cheese? She literally swipes it, using two hands, that is. She will finish what's in her right hand first and then move onto her left hand. If I drop more (and bigger) pieces on the plate for her, she will just drop what's in her hands and grab the new ones.

By the way, she can eat the whole kid's breakfast served at Ikea restaurant, minus some little pieces dropped on the floor. One full dollar worth of food, with 2 pancakes and scrambled eggs. Incredible.

This is Emilia eating corn off cob. Turn up the volume and you can hear her bite the kernels off the cob. Sounds so delicous I can imagine how sweet it must have been.