Firsts

The past couple months Courtney has had a handful of firsts. Two days before her first birthday she took 2 steps. Of course she did this almost immediately after I left the room, but thankfully Christopher was there to see it which was nice since I get to see most of her firsts first. For the next month or so she just took 2 and 3 steps at a time. Then right around when she turned 13 months, she started getting braver and within a week was walking across the room. I love her little toddle. It's so cute! She likes to scale along the wall and will still use the bins for balance some times, but she continues to get more and more comfortable with walking.

Courtney has also started talking some. She has said mama and dad for months now, but still doesn't call us them very regularly. She does say 'daz' for dance and then will wiggle when she says it. She also recently learned 'car' (and even pointed it out in her book) and will say 'cool' (last night she said it when we were reading her bible verses. She apparently thinks 2 Timothy 3:16 is coooool). I have a feeling that the talking will be like the walking was and that one day she will just start saying all sorts of words. In the meantime I enjoy listening to her chat away to herself using all sorts of inflections and sounds I don't understand.

Unfortunately there were also some less exciting firsts. Shortly after Courtney turned a year old we finally left her in the church nursery. We've been asked from a few people why it took us so long. It was for a few reasons. We had been attending a very large church and just didn't feel comfortable leaving her with people we'd never met and it just felt like she was too young for a while. We also kept hearing people say their baby would get sick after being in the nursery and I wasn't ready to subject her to that. She also is just a sensitive girl. She pretty much has been from the time she was born. She knows who she likes and doesn't like and is only really comfortable with a pretty limited number of people (most of whom are family). We began attending a different church this summer and while it is still a big church, thankfully the nursery area doesn't have too many other kids in it. We've left Courtney there maybe 4 times now and they've only called me to come help her once so far. However, both times I have taken her there when I've gone to MOPS, they've had to call me, but in all fairness almost two and a half hours is a long time for her to be away from me. I still feel so bad every time she cries when I leave. People keep telling me it will get better and I am sure it will, but in the mean time it breaks my heart that she has such a tough time.

Maybe related to that and maybe not, Courtney also got her first cold about two weeks ago. I actually thought it was great that it took over a year for her to have any illness (yay breastfeeding ;) ). It really wasn't even a bad cold. It was mostly just her nose running a lot and her having trouble sleeping because of it. Unfortunately I caught it too so I was trying to take care of getting myself better as well as her. We're both better now and are thankful for good health. I forget how much I take that for granted most of the time.

Taking a stroll

I took these when she was sick. She still had a pretty good attitude.