I was looking through my pictures and found some more cute Gwen ones. I thought that I'd just pile them all together and give brief explanations for them. Mostly, they're from moments where you go, "grab the camera, Honey! You've got to see this!"
Also, I forgot to update about Gwen's 12 month check-up. No, that's not a check-up that takes 12 months to complete. She weighed in at 26.6 pounds. No wonder my back hurts if I have to carry her for more than a few minutes. She's in the 97% for weight. The doctor told us to put her on 2% milk instead of whole and to really encourage her to start walking so she won't get too flabby. Being too rolly can make it harder for her to walk and do the other big motor movements. She's in the 75% for height and head circumference. Ideally her weight should be in the 75% or there abouts. He told us not to worry because most toddlers stop gaining weight for the next year or so and start to thin out after they start walking.
Yeah, so no, Gwen's not walking yet. These last few days she's really been more focused on staying on her feet though. She'll cruise for much longer distances and hold out her hands and "ask" you to help her stand and walk to where she wants to be. She still reverts to a crawl if she wants to get anywhere quickly. Her doctor said she's actually right on target for her age - most babies don't walk until 13-14 months. Gwen's also not talking much. She doesn't use any words, but instead jargons at us. Jargoning is where she strings sounds together and uses inflection to sound like what she thinks we sound like. It's more complex than babbling, which is just repeating sylables without the pauses and tones that are included in jargoning. Most babies Gwen's age have 3-4 words by now. Her doctor was a little concerned about that, but asked if she points and shows enthusiasm for something. She does do that and she seems to understand quite a bit of what we say. He said that the ability to point and show enthusiasm for an object is a big determiner for autism. Most autistic babies her age don't do that. He thinks she's just a slower talker but she'll catch up.
For her actually birthday, we took Gwen out to eat at Fazoli's. She loves spaghetti.
See.
Gwen's been trying to use utensils lately. She can get the food on the end sometimes, but then she picks it off with her fingers and puts it in her mouth.
When I'm at work, Jonathan gives Gwen piano lessons. She's very good at eating sheet music and banging as loud as possible. She's a genious!
When we went to visit Heidi and baby Jami at the hospital, Gwen found a nice place to climb into and hide. She was so happy with herself until she realized that she was stuck. Then Daddy had to rescue her.
Gwen gets attacked by prunes and loses the battle.
This is why all our toilet paper rolls are empty and we seem to go through the stuff so much faster these days.
Gwen now walks up and down the stairs like a big person. She's getting much better at her toddling and can go about 15 feet before falling. She did fall outside on the sidewalk the other day and got her first big scrape, right on her cheek. She loves to be outside so hopefully the nice fall weather will stay for a long time. I'm not looking forward to having to be indoors more once it gets cold. It will be fun to watch her play in the snow for the first time though.
It's so neat to watch Gwen change from my little helpless baby to a very helpful toddler. She has to be right in the middle of whatever it is we're doing. She loves to load and unload the dishwasher. Here she is in her jammies putting her still full sippy cup away after breakfast. Speaking of sippy cups, Gwen weaned herself from her bottles this week. I went to give her her bedtime bottle as usual on Tuesday and she threw it at me. She hasn't picked one up since. I guess she just decided that she didn't want them anymore. What a relief that was. We've been trying to get her to give them up for the last month and weren't having any success. I fear that this is probably how things will work with Gwen. We'll try to get her to do things and she'll resist until she decides to do it.
Anything and everything is a toy to a one-year-old. She loves to crawl on her stroller, or in it if it's set up. She treats Boot the same way. That poor dog puts up with so much from her. Gwen tries to ride Boot at least a couple times a day. Gwen now says "Boot" sometimes. I think we'll have to count that as her first word. She also says "Sit" pronounced "Shet" and will hold her hand out with a fist (that's the hand signal we use for sit) and command Boot to "shet". If Boot does, then Gwen gets to give her a treat. 
Did I mention that Gwen loves to get into things? The other day she got into the fridge and found an open bag of carrots. Yummy. Of course, when eating carrots, it's best to have one in each hand. Another one of Gwen's favorites these days is the Itsy Bitsy Spider song. It's the ONLY thing that keeps her remotely still for her diaper changes. It also cheers her up if she's having a mini meltdown about something. She does some of the hand actions too. Sometimes when we're driving I'll look back and she'll be doing the actions in her car seat. It's really too cute.
I love this picture so much because all you can see of her is her cute nearly bald head focused on the TV. 
