Happy Birthday Reagan Mei!

Wow!! What a year it has been! I get weekly babycenter emails about my "baby" and her development, but today's email said "Your Toddler" instead of "baby" and I almost started crying!! I can't believe this girl is already a year old! In some ways, Reagan has been our most, um, challenging, baby :) But we all love her so much and are so glad she's part of our family!!!! She is becoming so playful and fun and is definitely the favorite of her two sisters! I can't wait to see what the next year will bring!!

- Stats: 19 lbs, 6 oz and 29 inches. She's right at 50%
- Sleeping: From about 7 pm to 6 am ... well, almost 6 am. She has a knack for waking up at 5:56, 5:57, 5:58, you get the idea. It's mildly ridiculous. Thankfully, I just go get her and bring her in bed with me and we both rest for another 20 minutes or so while she nurses. I may nurse for another year just so I can get those extra 20 minutes. She takes two naps during the day around 9 am and 1 pm for no more than an hour each time. She's definitely not like the other two in the sleep category. I suppose I'll stop feeling tired around ... 2022 :)
- Nursing: We've worked on weaning a little but I'm not super anxious about it, mostly because I have no plans to give up that morning feeding, as mentioned above. We were down to 4 feedings a day about a week before her birthday and have been working on getting to 3. I really have no problem continuing to nurse in the morning and evening for a little while longer but I would like to get rid of the daytime feedings ... as silly as it sounds sometimes it's really hard to fit in those 15 minutes with everything else we have going on. Most days I end up nursing her in the car while we wait for Madison to get out of school! Just a note about nursing, mostly for myself ... I got pretty brave with her this past year and I'm actually pretty proud of myself for how much I've embraced nursing over the course of these three kids. This past year, I've honestly never seen the inside of the Mother's Lounge at church, opting instead to just nurse with a cover, usually during Sacrament meeting. This is something I've had many conversations with friends about. I don't get while more women don't do that. Why should I have to leave my family and meetings just to feed my baby? I can remember with McKinley there were days that the Mother's Lounge was full and I'd actually go outside to nurse in my car just because it felt so taboo so nurse in church. I'm so glad I got over that. I'll also admit that I have often nursed other public places (NOT church) without a cover. Sometimes the cover just makes it so much more difficult, like when it's hot outside or when she starts playing with it. So I just don't use it. I feel like I've gotten very good at doing it discreetly. As far as I know, no one has been scarred for life and I feel totally comfortable with it
- Eating: Reagan is definitely our best eater! She really loves anything we give her. Her favorites are bananas, cherry tomatoes, strawberries, cheese, graham crackers and yogurt. But she's had a wide variety of things that she likes, including kiwi, pineapple, zucchini and corn. For breakfast, she gets a banana and either some variety of mini muffin that I've made or whole wheat waffles left over from the weekend. Lunch is usually cheese blocks, a fruit and whatever other leftovers we have and then she eats what we eat for dinner. Snacks include dried fruit (she loves dried apples the most), graham crackers, yogurt and the baby puffs, which I still like to use because they're easy to carry around in the diaper bag and made with whole grains. She has been exclusively drinking water (we don't do juice) but started on regular milk this week. She took a few drinks the first time we gave her the cup and now just pushes it away if we even try :) It's a work in progress
- We seem to have settled on Reggy for a nickname although we still call her Reagan Mei a lot. We're just weird like that with the middle names!
- She took her first steps on Friday March 11. She'll do three or four at a time now but nothing consistent. If we try to get her to walk between us, she usually just ends up laughing so much she falls down! But she'll walk between things for a couple steps if she's really trying to get to something. It took both the other girls about a month to go from first steps to walking full-time so I think she'll be the same. She prefers cruising over crawling and uses the walls, furniture and whatever else is handy to get around
- We're planning to transition her to the bigger carseat as soon as she's walking consistently. As it is right now, we usually take her out of her infant seat when we go into stores and places but I still like to be able to carry her in it sometimes since she can't walk, like when I'm walking in the house carrying a bunch of other stuff too
- She is pretty attached to me still but is getting better and better. I'm her go-to but she's gotten more comfortable with a few other people and has had a couple babysitters in addition to Aunt Jenna. She still gets upset if there's too many people around or if people are getting in her face, which means that choir practice is still a nightmare for her ... those young women love her so much and she just wants them to go away!!!
- She loves to play with us!!! She plays peek-a-boo all the time and loves to "Reggy attack" and just pounce on whoever she can get to. Since Madison and McKinley are usually the ones she can get to on the floor, she loves to climb on them. After she nurses in the morning, she immediately rolls away from me and starts climbing on Dad, usually burying her face in his neck :) I actually love this time with her even though it's early. She's also very ticklish and loves it when you tickle her or blow raspberries on her. She loves to give and receive big hugs and kisses
- She likes to click her tongue a lot. She also has her tongue out almost constantly
- She has 7 teeth, 4 on top and 3 on bottom
- She loves to squeal (Madison claims to have taught her that) and has started to throw tantrums, like scream and arch her back and push you away tantrums. Fun times :)
- She can say Mama and Dada and knows everyone's name (like she turns to us if you ask her where we are). She also likes to wave and most recently learned to clap! She gets so excited if you say, "Yay Reagan!" and claps for herself!
- She doesn't like to be in a room by herself but as long as someone else is around, she's usually pretty content to play by herself unless she's tired (then she just wants me and only me to hold her). She has her favorite things to do in every room in the house so she can be close to us wherever we are. In the bathrooms, she loves to pull things out of the cupboards, throw things in the bathtub and unroll the toilet paper. In the kitchen she loves to play with the things in her cupboards or plot ways to get in the dishwasher. She loves pulling things out of the dishwasher! She also loves to pull things out of the trash and recycle bins so we're working on that. In the living room, she likes to play the piano or pull the DVDs off the shelf (do you sense a theme here? Destructo Baby!!) When she's in our room, she immediately heads to the bathroom. And finally, in the playroom, she loves to play with the blocks, pull random things out of the toy box or play with the puzzles. She also LOVES LOVES LOVES the coloring table! She pulls the box of coloring stuff down, pretends to color and write with whatever markers or pens she can find and even tries to sit in the chairs! She thinks she's just like her big sisters!
- She loves to knock over anything her sisters attempt to make or build. If they're building with the blocks, she'll stop what she's doing, crawl over just to knock it over and then go back to what she was doing.
- She hates getting dressed and having her diaper changed
- She LOVES water!! Whether it's the pool, the splash pad, the bathtub or the shower, she is happiest in the water, just like her Mom! If she hears the shower get turned on the morning, she makes a beeline for it and stands outside the door pounding to be let in
- She likes to sleep with her little pink and green blanket and likes to have the bink in her mouth when she first lays down but spits it out after a minute or two. She wants nothing to do with the bink any other time, which can sometimes be frustrating if I just need something to instantly soothe her but I know will be great in the long run
- She gets upset if things get too loud or if the big girls are fighting. It's kind of cute when she screams at them :)
- She loves being outside, especially if I just let her go explore. She doesn't mind the dirt or the grass and loves to slide in addition to swinging now. She still puts everything in her mouth though so I have a hard time just letting her down.

Birthday Presents
- Ride-on car
- Sippy cups, bibs, snack cups
- Play tablet
- Church shoes and sandals
- Swim vest
- Bouncy cow

According to Reagan (and Mom!)
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1. What is your favorite color? TBD although her sisters have assigned her the color red
2. What is your favorite toy? Her Daddy and the blocks
3. What is your favorite fruit? Banana
4. What is your favorite tv show? N/A and we’d like to keep it that way for as long as possible

5. What is your favorite thing to eat for lunch? Cheese blocks, strawberries and graham crackers
6. What is your favorite outfit? Shoes of any kind
7. What is your favorite game? Peek-a boo
8. What is your favorite snack? Graham Crackers
9. What is your favorite animal? Her sisters
10. What is your favorite song? Anything Madison sings to her
11. What is your favorite book? Any of the peek-a-boo books

12. Who is your best friend? Gage

13. What is your favorite cereal? N/A
14. What is your favorite thing to do outside? Put rocks in her mouth
15. What is your favorite drink? Mommy’s milk
16. What is your favorite holiday? Her birthday
17. What do you like to take to bed with you at night? Pink and green blanket
18. What is your favorite thing to eat for breakfast? Bananas and waffles
19. What do you want for dinner on your birthday? Pork chops, pineapple and zucchini
20. What do you want to be when you grow up? Able to walk