To let go and breathe

Whitney is now 13 months old and truly a toddler. This past month, since she has gotten mobile on her own two feet, has really grown into her personality. She is walking all the time now, and hardly ever resorts to crawling, clearly crawling is for babies. She loves playing with Tilly and teasing him with his toys. She rolls around the ground or on a blanket with her play cell phone or looks at her flash cards. She has books all over the house and can be seen sitting down and looking at the pictures. Skype has been so great, my parents get to see her at least once or twice a week, just playing and interacting with them or the dog. It's pretty nice for them to see each other, and for them to see her "in action" even if just for a few minutes.

Another huge milestone was reached, she is now completely of bottles. Her pediatrician highly suggested we try to get her off the bottle and 1, and at 13 months she finally took to it. Her babysitter was really on board and helped out a lot, I packed all the bottle supplies up last night and purchased more sippy cups. It feels so good to not have to deal with bottles anymore!

We've been staying busy on the weekends while Andy is working. Either going to the pool, playing or shopping, she is such so much fun to be around. I can see at this age is where it is hard to go to work, you just want to play with your child and enjoy their time. It just means that the weekends mean so  much more now and to truly enjoy the time you do get with them.

Every now and then I'll google "cooling blanket" or "HIE" and the worries and fears coming flooding back to me. I see Whitney doing so well and am just so thankful and feel so blessed and remind myself to look at her, not those webpages. In the beginning I felt like i was always holding my breath, not knowing how she would react or what the next big challenge was going to be. And here she is, walking all over the house, babbling, and being a toddler, just as we had hoped and prayed and dreamed. I can exhale now, and that's what feels so good.