1 year and 1 month old. My daughter's sense of self is growing rapidly

My daughter will be 1 year and 2 months old soon.
I felt the budding of her sense of self just before she turned one, and since she turned 1 year and 1 month old, it feels like those buds are growing rapidly.

The two upper front teeth that were slow to come in have finally poked through.

The baby phase, where I could just adore her as being 'cute,' is slowly coming to an end.

She has started expressing anger with her voice

My daughter often has her toys taken away by her older brother.
To be fair, she prefers playing with her brother's toys over her own, so it's somewhat inevitable.

'You can't touch this!'

My son takes the Tomica car my daughter is holding.

'Aaaah!'

My daughter expresses her anger with a high-pitched voice.
Angered by that, my son gives her a light tap.

'Aaaah!'

She doesn't cry, but just lets out a cry of anger.

Then, my son tries to hit her again.
If I leave it like this, it will be endless, so I have to step in to mediate.

Of course, there are times when she cries after having things taken away, but I feel her growth in the fact that she can now express 'I am angry!' with just her voice without crying.

A spirit of retaliation

The shopping cart where two people can sit facing each other is a must when we go to the mall.

With my daughter sitting and my son standing in front of her, their personal space is almost zero.
Since they are within touching distance, my daughter has started tapping her brother with her feet.

My son doesn't seem to like that and gets angry, grabbing her feet and saying, 'Don't touch me!'

'Aaaah!'

Then, my daughter, not liking having her feet grabbed, raises her voice and gives her brother a tap on the head.

My son, not to be outdone, taps her on the head as well.
My daughter then retaliates again.

"Oh, so this is a sibling squabble!!!"

Having never had a real fight with my sister who is seven years my junior, I found myself watching the shoving match unfolding before my eyes as if it were something rare and fascinating.

"Alright, alright, no more hitting!"

Snapping back to reality, I switched my role from a spectator watching a sports match to a referee and intervened.

My daughter doesn't cry when she's hit; she hits back. She's quite tough.
It looks like my son might be the one getting made to cry before long.

The spirit of 'if you do something for me, I'll do something for you'

My daughter's snack is a baby rice cracker.

At first, when I hand her a cracker, she eats it with a nice crunching sound.
But halfway through, perhaps she gets bored, she started offering the cracker to me.

It seems she's saying, 'You should eat some too.'

A slightly soggy baby rice cracker.
Though a bit hesitant, I take a bite of the cracker with the edge melted by my daughter's drool, and she looks satisfied, offering it to me again with a face that says, 'Have some more.'
It's endless.

Baby rice crackers are tasty, but I don't really want to eat that many.
If I'm having a snack, I'd rather have a Country Ma'am cookie or a Choco Pie with some tea.

But, I think it's because she wants todo for others what is always done for herthat she acts this way, so I have no choice but to take a bite of the offered cracker.

She can now walk more than 10 steps

She started cruising around 10 months old.
Just before turning one, I began to sense her intention to stand without support.

From then on, my husband, desperate for her to walk, tried to get her to stand or walk in any way he could.
Contrary to her dad's wishes, she would sit down immediately if stood up, and if encouraged to walk, she would quickly put her hands down and crawl.

She refused to break her style of not standing or walking, even if it killed her.
When we visited my parents' house, she would make silent demands like, 'I want to walk, so support my sides properly!', which ended up causing damage to the adults' lower backs.
(Refer tothis article)

That was until one night at bedtime.
Ignoring my sleepiness, my daughter's eyes were wide awake in the dimly lit room.
She was standing up and crawling all over the place, rummaging through various things to play with.
Then, my daughter, who had been cruising, suddenly started walking two, three steps toward me as I lay on the futon.

"Oh! Amazing! Amazing!"

If I made too much noise, she would wake up even more, so I clapped without making a sound and praised her in a small voice, and my daughter, feeling good about herself, started walking over and over again. (I really want her to sleep at night)

After three or four nights of that.
My daughter was suddenly able to walk more than 10 steps.
She walks with a smug look on her face, but her legs are still unsteady, wobbling like a newborn fawn, which is just so cute.

Since then, perhaps because she enjoys walking, she has started standing up and walking on her own quite often.

“She wasn't motivated at all even when I encouraged her.”

My husband said that quietly while watching our daughter.

That's true.
My daughter has been doing things at her own pace since she started rolling over.
If she doesn't feel like doing something, she won't do it no matter how much adults encourage her, but once she decides to, she learns at the speed of a bullet train.
However, it seems she doesn't stop at Daddy's station.

The pointing boom has arrived

When we make eye contact, she now widens her eyes and points at various things, saying “Oh! Ah!” to show me.

Sometimes she is pointing at something specific, and other times she is pointing at a blank wall.
I get a chill down my spine wondering if there is something there that only she can see, so I try to cover it up by forcefully naming something nearby, like “That's the calendar.”

Even when I'm holding her, she points here and there, saying “Ugh! Ugh!”

“That's the light.”
“That's the remote control.”
“That's the sky.”
“That's Mommy.”

This, too, is endless.

It seems she will start talking earlier than my son did.

The desire to eat by herself has emerged

When I was feeding her with a spoon as usual, she started shaking her head from side to side.
Instead, she reached for the spoon I was holding.

I realized she had finally started showing interest in the spoon, so I handed her a short, round wooden one.
She then happily started stirring her food with the spoon.

Oh no, it's going to get messy...

I thought that, but immediately reached a state of resignation.

Let's just let her do as she likes this time.
From next time, I'll stop preparing mushy food.

So, from then on, I decided to give her white rice with a little less moisture than before and bite-sized pieces of banana on a plate.
As for the side dishes, I use a style where I quickly slip them into her mouth in between.

She grabs the white rice as she pleases and brings it to her mouth.
In no time, her whole face was covered in rice grains.
Even though she grabs it so firmly, why is the amount that actually makes it into her mouth so small?

The next moment, her pants looked like she had fed them the meal, making me want to ask her if she had.
Furthermore, the table was covered in mashed and stuck-on rice grains.

White rice was a mistake...

I didn't let my son do much finger food eating, so this basic fundamental didn't even cross my mind.

Well, I need to think about what ingredients are perfect for finger food.

It might be a glimpse of the 'terrible twos'.

Besides when her older brother takes her toys away or hits her, my daughter also gets angry and yells 'Aaaah!' when things don't go her way.

For example, when she's playing with a handkerchief and can't spread it out well, or when she can't turn the pages of a picture book properly.
She must be quite serious about it, but from where I'm watching, it's truly adorable.

That daughter of mine has finally started doing that pose.

I was folding laundry.
My daughter kept messing up the laundry I had folded and lined up, so I kept moving the things she tried to touch out of her reach one after another.

Angry at the situation where everything she tried to touch was being taken away, my daughter let out a strange cry of 'Aaaah!' as usual.
And then, the next moment, she flopped face down on the floor.

Oh my? Is the 'terrible twos' already here...?

At the time, I laughed out of surprise and because it was so cute, but thinking about the 'terrible twos' that are about to begin, I felt a sense of crisis that I might not be able to just laugh it off.

When I found out the baby in my belly was a girl, I had imagined a peaceful life raising a daughter.

However, looking at the current situation, I can be certain that such a parenting life is not coming.

She is at her own pace, strong-willed, and sometimes even bold.
It looks like she's going to be quite the tomboy.