Look Whooo Is 18 Months Old!!

18 months??!! We're 6 months away from planning her 2nd birthday! How in the world is that possible? I know...I say this every month, but time is seriously just flying by with this sweet girl.

We had her 18 month well-check earlier this morning, and I am proud to say (and not at all surprised) that she is right where she should be. Some of the questions we were asked were: can she use a spoon and a cup? (yes); can she stack blocks (she stacks Legos); can she run and climb (climb - yes; run - we're getting there!); does she eat table food at least 3x a day plus snacks (most definitely); does she mimic facial expressions, hand gestures, and/or words (haha! all. the. time!); does she point with her index finger (well...she uses her middle finger, but yes, she does point); does she say at least 15 words understandably (yes); does she have an expressive vocabulary of at least 20 words (yes); can she scribble correctly with colors? (yes).  That's all I can think of for the moment. At the start of each well-check, our nurse always asks us if we have any questions/concerns for the doctor. Michel and I brought up how Audrey walks with her left foot turned out much further than normal. Her right food is fine, but her left foot is turned out almost completely perpendicular to her right foot. Her pediatrician watched Audrey walk throughout the room and in the back hallway for a bit (Audrey was more than happy to have all eyes on her, too!) and thinks it's pretty normal, but did notice that she also walks heavily on the inside of her left foot, so she is sending us to Scottish Rite Hospital to have someone with more expertise watch Audrey walk and see if this is just out-toeing (which is apparently very common in toddlers who are just starting out walking). Our pediatrician asked another doctor to watch Audrey walk, too, and the other doctor also said she thinks it's just because Audrey is a new walker. I'd rather go to Scottish Rite and find out it's nothing than to do nothing about it and later find out that it's something. This girl! For a child who is perfectly healthy, we have had more therapy and specialized appointments than I ever dreamed possible (her PT and helmet). Oh well...I'm glad to fix all these little things while she's young and they can be fixed!

Anyways, on to her stats:

Weight: 21lbs 12oz (10th - 25th%ile)

Length: 30 1/2" (10th - 25th%ile)

Head Circumference: 18" (25th %ile) - it only grew 1/4" since her 15 month appointment. If you remember from her 15 month appt., we had to go back at 16 months for head measurement b/c it looked like her head grew a lot between 12 and 15 months. Today the dr said her head is on her normal growth curve and is chalking up the "rapid head growth" measurement to an incorrect measurement at some point along the way. Phew!)

Sleep: I feel like she's sleeping MORE than she used to (but not in a worrisome way)! Lately she's been sleeping about 12 - 13 hours at night (usually 7:45/8p - 8:30a!). Her night sleep hasn't changed much, but the last couple weeks her normal 1 1/2 hour long nap has extended to closer to 2 1/2 hours! This makes Mommy happy :) Now that I say that, she'll probably go back to taking crazy short naps, but at least I got a couple of weeks of nice long naps!

Eating: She is a great eater! She doesn't normally eat much at breakfast (sometimes she literally takes 5 bites or less and then is signing "all done"), but she always eats a great lunch and dinner. A typical breakfast for her is either a cereal bar, a bowl of Cheerios with milk, or some oatmeal. Lunch is usually ham or tuna salad (sometimes she gets Spaghettios instead), cheese (always have to have cheese!), sauteed bell peppers (her absolute favorite) and apple slices. Dinner is whatever Michel and I are eating. There's a couple of exceptions where I fix her something different, but that's because there are very few foods that she doesn't eat, so when it's a food that she's shown me multiple times that she doesn't like I will heat up some macaroni for her. She also is offered a snack when she wakes up from her nap, but usually doesn't eat it. Apparently she likes her 3 square meals a day.

Clothes: All of her 9m/9-12m are definitely too small now. She can comfortably wear 12m, but they're getting too small in the length (mainly pj's). 12m pants don't fit her b/c, for as small as she is, she still has some nice, chunky baby thighs! So pants are always 18m; shirts can be 12m or 12-18m.

New Achievements of the Month:
1. She can walk!!!!! Finally! 17m 3w she took about 3 very independent, tentative steps. Then she got sick and it seemed that her walking was all done. 4 days before turning 18 months, AND her appointment she started walking all over the place! I was able to capture it on video, too!
2. Can correctly name 3 out of 6 Bubble Guppies (is this something I should brag about???) :)
3. Can tell you what sounds the following letters make (in addition to the ones she knew at 17 months): R, W, Y, S, A, B, F, G, J, K, L, M, N
4. She can also identify the following letters when she sees them in writing: A, B, F, J, K, L, M, N, R, S, W, Y (in addition to H, P, T that she knew at 17 months). I promise I don't sit and tutor her and do flashcards or something! Michel jokes that she used all of her energy that should have gone towards learning to walk into learning to read and talking!
5. She will tell you when she's pooping! It's usually pretty obvious, but when her face is red, and I ask her, "Are you pooping?" she'll either answer with "no" (shakes her head) or if she's actually pooping, she'll say, "pooping"!
6. She tries to dress herself. It doesn't work at all because she just lays her socks on the tops of her feet and puts her shirt on her head, so she doesn't understand how to get her clothes ON; she just knows where each article of clothing goes.
7. She says "yucky" very clearly. Usually it's when she finds something on the floor (food from the previous meal that I missed while sweeping, or if we're walking in the parking lot of a store and she finds trash, she'll point and say, "yucky!" It's pretty cute :)
8. Says "whoa!" very clearly. Usually when she falls down :)
9. Shakes her head "no" and usually means it. Sometimes she nods "yes", but "no" is what I see most often.
10. She's getting pretty good at puzzles. As I'm typing this, we're in her room, and she did 2 puzzles - each with 10 independent pieces completely on her own!
11. Always tells me my hands are cold (which they probably are), so I blew on my hands one time, and now when she tells me that my hands are cold I tell her to blow on them and warm them up. This usually turns into her licking my hands...but it's hilarious!
12. Eats *very* well off of a plate and can use a fork and a spoon with very little help from Mommy or Daddy (oh, and right after I typed this the turkey dumped all the food off of her plate not once, but twice...normally she eats off the plate with no problem, but had to dump food only because I wrote that she does so well with a plate)
13. After a few days of having a stand-off with her when I told her to clean up a mess she purposely made and she pretended like she either a.) didn't understand what I was asking; b.) didn't want to do it, and seeing that Mommy was going to make her obey she now cleans up with no problem - usually after I ask her once. When I tell her it's time to go to bed she immediately starts picking up her Legos and putting them away without me having to ask! She really has such a sweet, helpful heart :)


Likes:
1. Chocolate milk - the only way I can get her to drink milk well is if I do 1/2-3/4 white milk and fill the rest of the cup with chocolate milk. Even then, there are some days that she only drinks like 4oz of milk.
2. Ice cream - we went to Jason's Deli after her dr's appointment this morning, and she was adamant that she was done eating when we offered her different food....until I went and got my free frozen yogurt. Suddenly, she was ready to eat again! (she is seriously my mini-me!)
3. Grocery shopping - this used to be the activity that I would NEVER do with her, and now it's so fun! She loves putting apples and bell peppers into produce bags for me, and whenever we pass a food she knows she'll point to it, say whatever it is, and ask "Please?" You would think we never feed this girl!

Dislikes: 
1. Not getting exactly what she wants when she wants it - that's pretty much every toddler though, right? :)

This girl is just soooo easy-going and happy! I don't know why God chose me to be her mommy, but my life is so blessed because of it!