Maya and Dexter's Amazing Adventures: Jul 8, 2008

Tuesday, July 8, 2008

"Maya's Real Birthday" video

Here's Maya on her actual birthday. You can see she is suffering from a little birthday angst...

Look Familiar?

Here's a photo of the three of us at around one year old. Notice any family resemblance?

Dad (Todd), Maya, and Mom (Kearsley)

On July 8th, our little Maya turned one year old. Maya has evolved so much in 12 short months. She now weighs about 19.5 pounds, and is 28.5 inches long. She's hovering somewhere around the 25 percentile for height and weight which is where she's been for most of the first year. Now that she's an excellent crawler, she's graduated to pulling herself up on the coffee table and her favorite activity table and then 'cruising' hesitantly along their edges. She's trying to climb up on us, the stairs...anything she can find. She likes to play ball and will actually catch a ball and roll it back to someone else. She enjoys music and bounces around to the beat of most songs. She also enjoys books and gets very excited anytime someone will read to her. Her favorite book right now is "Pat the Bunny." She loves to do all the little activities on each page.

She loves to find new ways to communicate with us. She does a couple basic baby signs: all-done and kitty. And she loves to point at things, sometimes to show us that she sees them, sometimes because she wants something, and sometimes we have no idea why she's pointing. She claps when she likes something or when she hears other people clapping. She loves imitating words and sounds. She will 'Moo' when she see's a cow picture, she will blow raspberries on cue, and makes a whole host of other sounds which might correspond to some object or person. We haven't figured out her language just yet.

She eats well and is now enjoying more 'regular' food including cooked broccoli and carrots, breadsticks, toast, waffles, fruit, yogurt, and cheese. We're still making her special stews, but we are using less purees everyday. She's using a sippy cup for water and we are just about to start weaning her to a sippy cup for milk too.

Her personality is beginning to come through more and more. She's very thoughtful and observant. When she gets into a new situation, she tends to want to sit and watch for a little while and then she starts to interact. She really seems to think before she does things. She's also pretty sturdy and easy going. Most things don't really phase her. She's very smiley and affectionate. She gives hugs and kisses and likes to snuggle. He laughs a lot and likes to be silly. She's also very dramatic when she does get upset. She goes from smiling to full blown sobbing and (luckily) back to smiling very rapidly. She's very alert and really likes to engage with people. She's been known to stare down and flirt endlessly with people that interest her. We can't believe such a wonderful person has come into our lives.

Happy birthday little girl!