15 months old

My 15 month old:


- Will finally drink milk from a sippy cup and is down to only the morning bottle. That one is soon to go, too!

- Her favorite foods are: bananas, grilled cheese sandwiches, macaroni & cheese, French fries, and yogurt. She will still eat almost anything I put in front of her. She's also doing very well with a spoon now, and we're starting to work on a fork.

- Has no problems whatsoever with walking from place to place. She does try to get ahead of herself when she walks, and ends up tripping & falling flat on her face, but it usually doesn't bother her. Shortly after she figured out how to walk, she figured out how to stand without even pulling herself up on any furniture. She loves being able to keep up with the other kids in her preschool now and I love seeing her walk down the hall to music class!

- Is getting her teeth in really weird. She now has 2 new molars on top and 1 on bottom. But she skipped past the two right next to the 2 front teeth on the bottom and one on top. I'm still hoping these are what contributes to her often constant grumpiness.


- Understands a whole lot more than I sometimes give her credit for. She might not be able to say many words, but she understands what to do when I tell her to "bring me that book" or "throw that in the trash" or "Want to go outside?" (she points at the door) or "ready to eat?" and a lot of other things. I don't know why it still surprises me every time she does what I ask!

- Is most of the time very obedient. If you ask her to bring you something she has that she's not supposed to have, she will do it willingly. She of course has her ocassional temper-tantrum, but mostly she listens very well.


- Can point to her nose & her ears when asked. Doesn't so much understand where mommy's nose or ears are, though!


- Pretends to feed her baby dolls & stuffed animals with a fake bottle I gave her. She also gives them hugs & kisses (complete with kissy noises).


- Is starting to enjoy reading books much more and also sitting on people's laps. She'll pick out a book, bring it to me, and then turn herself around and plop down on my lap so I'll read it to her. It melted my heart when her book of choice the other night was her storybook Bible. I can't tell you how many times I've read her "Peekaboo Kisses"!

- Loves to dance. She holds on to her little Activity Table and bends her knees up & down, or waves her arms around. She also waves her arms around to television commercials and songs on the radio in the car.

- Also loves to be outside. Even if she's not doing anything. She likes to pick up leaves or pine needles. She likes to wander around and play with dirt. She's always so much happier after she's gotten some fresh air.

[I'm actually writing this about 3 days earlier & having it automatically post on her 15-month day since we're leaving for Texas tomorrow to celebrate Thanksgiving. So I will update with pictures once we get back & also her height & weight once we go to the dr. on the 3rd.]

Thanksgiving Ideas

Since the Fall, I have been attending a Mothers of Preschoolers (MOPS) group at our former church, Wake Crossroads. It is a fairly large group, maybe 40 or 50 moms, all who are in the same phase of life as I. I haven't really been super excited about going each week (it is a 30 minute drive & it is my day off from work), but it is nice to be around other moms, to fellowship, and also learn new things. And Leah gets to play with other kids her age. Each week we have breakfast, then a speaker (with topics like contentment, time management, etc.), then small group time, and then a craft.



All this to say-- Last meeting the speaker just showed us & talked to us about different traditions her family celebrates around the holidays. She was quite crafty, which I like, but no one could quite figure out how she had time for all those things!! She did inspire, me, though, to come up with some ideas & traditions of my own. Most of her ideas were for Christmas, and I'll do a separate entry about that, but since Thanksgiving is upon us, here are some crafts I have found that might be fun in the years to come.

Thankfulness Can

Her main Thanksgiving idea was a "Thankfulness Can." They decorated a regular tin can with just cut up pieces of construction paper. Then, each day leading up to Thanksgiving, each of the kids puts in the can a piece of paper telling something they are thankful for that day, with their name-- anything from "I'm thankful we ate spaghetti today" to "I'm thankful my family spent time together"-- whatever is age appropriate. Then on Thanksgiving Day, you can pull out the slips of paper & read them together to remember all you are thankful for.

Here is an alternate idea along those lines:

Thankful Wreath of Leaves

Hands-and-Feet Turkey Craft

Leah actually made a turkey like this in preschool, with her feet and hands (but I'm pretty sure the hands weren't her own-- they were too big). But I think it's a really cute idea & could be cool to show growth of the kids' hands & feet.

Card Cut-Out Placemat

I don't have a picture of this, but this is another craft we did in MOPS. We cut out phrases, cute pictures, and other cute things off greeting cards that people had already received. A good idea would be to save old birthday or Christmas cards you get, and then cut them up. We glued them all in a pretty arrangement onto a piece of legal sized paper and then covered it with contact paper to make it a placemat that can be used during the holiday season. I thought this was a great way to showcase old cards that just get stuck in a drawer.

Ch-ch-ch-changes...

Maybe just mentioning it made her sleep in, or maybe its the antibiotics she just started taking for her sinus infection... Maybe I shouldn't be saying anything right now! Leah's slept in till 7:00 the past 4 days. And she's woken up in a good mood. And she's still taking a good 2 hr. nap, and going to bed easily by 7:30. Don't tell her I told you...

We gave up the afternoon bottle cold turkey. I just decided it was time, since she's doing really well taking milk from a cup now. So I put all the bottles away. They're still in the cupboard, because I'm still giving her one in the morning (in decreasing amounts), but she can't see them. The first day she woke up from her nap & saw the cup she whined a minute and then pointed me toward the kitchen where the bottles usually were. When she saw they weren't there, she pointed instead at her snack sitting out waiting for her. She sat down & drank 2 full cups of milk & ate her snack. She hasn't missed that bottle since. She's started pretending to feed her baby dolls bottles now, too, (which is really sweet) so we talk about how bottles are for little babies and she's a big girl so she gets to drink from a cup.

I created a new photo website. The old Picasa site got full AGAIN, so I decided to move all the pictures over to Shutterfly, which I think has unlimited photo storage space, and allows me to create a neat site with them. You can see it here: http://codyfamily1.shutterfly.com/. I'll also update the link on the right.

She can eat with a spoon all by herself!

She discovered she REALLY loves this Elmo puppet. As soon as she sees him, she waves and then kisses & hugs him.

Isn't this the sassiest face ever?

5:30 am

Once upon a time, I had a little girl who slept like a teenager. She would wake up between 7 & 7:30 every morning, and then be ready to nap again at 10, and still take a good afternoon nap at 2. Now, I have a little girl that is full of energy and a zest for life. Lately she has been waking up sometime between 5 & 6 a.m. Now, sometimes she'll cry and I'll turn the monitor off. Five minutes later, she'll be back to sleep again. Sometimes, though, she cries until she's so upset she can't go back to sleep. So I trudge myself out of my warm bed (because I am NOT a morning person). And then I go through the mental debate every morning-- do I try to put her back to sleep so she's not grumpy all day? or do I go ahead & give her her morning bottle so she stops crying and then lay down on the couch with her for a little while? or will she be ready to play after she has her bottle? I wouldn't worry about it so much if she didn't have to go to school at 9:45 (right around the time she starts getting ready for a nap) and doesn't get a nap until 2:00! She's exhausted by then.


I have tried everything I can think of to get her to sleep later-- she has a snack before bed so she's not so hungry (and I usually try to wait her morning bottle until at least 6 so her body is not trained to be expecting it before that), she wears a bigger diaper so she's not soaking wet, I put her to bed later, put her to bed earlier... Apparently she is just a morning person, or it might just be another phase we have to get through.


I see it as another obstacle to getting rid of the bottle, too. When she wakes up, she's steaming mad & will continue to cry until she gets her bottle. (This applies for the afternoon nap too.) 5:30 is too early for a regular breakfast, and anyway, if I tried to stick her in her high chair with food in front of her, she'd get mad & push it away. (I know, because she did it after a nap once.) The bottle is a completely different story, and I do have some other ideas for getting rid of that, but I'm not sure she's ready yet.


It seems this 5:30am thing will never end. But, hopefully, I will come back & look at this post in 2 weeks and wonder why I ever bothered to worry...

Mommy/ Daughter Weekend

Brett went out of town this past weekend with his friend Steve, so it was just the kid & me. We did all kinds of fun stuff together to keep busy! We took a trip to the mall, where she ordered her very own kids meal & ate chicken nuggets & French fries for the first time. Then she got to play in the play area & drive the little quarter cars. (She really did have a lot of fun, but she wouldn't smile in any of the pictures.)

After nap time, we went to a place called Monkey Joes which has a lot of inflatables. She's really still kind of little for this place, but our $3 wasn't wasted. They did have a toddler area, but she didn't really want to play in there by herself. I took her on a couple of the big slides & she had fun, but got bored quickly. They also had a little play area with a big chalkboard, and she really liked that. We came home & played some in the leaves again, since it was a nice day.

And she's really getting good at this walking thing. The last picture is of her figuring out how to stand up on her own without using the furniture to pull up. She's got it down pat, too, and is all over the place now!

And when the kid was sleeping, I got to do some things I love to do! I am really excited about a new "cookbook" I put together, which has 6 weeks worth of menus, with recipes that I have already tried & like. Each week has 5 dinners (since we usually eat out or have pizza one or two nights a week), 2 lunches (since most of the dinners have lots of leftovers), 2 breakfasts (we usually have cereal, anyway), and a dessert. Then I put together a shopping list for each week, so all I have to do is pick which week I want to do, take the list & go to the store-- no multiple trips to the grocery store where I end up buying way more than what I came for. So this week one of the lunches was my favorite salad, the Seven-Layer Salad. And the dessert was Chocolate Peanut Butter Chip Cookies. They turned out so good I had to document my success. And of course, I had time to finish about 4 pages of Leah's First Year scrapbook. (I'm up to Month 6! Maybe it will be done by the time she's 2!)

A Letter to My 14 Month Old

Leah,


I can't believe how quickly time is flying, now that you're past those newborn days. I can hardly believe you're taking steps on your own-- testing out your independence, but still falling down every few steps as if you're not quite sure you're ready for that! It's funny how excited you get when you realize you're walking without holding on to anything. You're a bundle of energy these days, waking up at 6am, ready to face the day, only stopping an hour or so for your afternoon nap. I would never have imagined you'd get into some of the things you're getting into now: trash cans, toilets, dirty clothes hampers... You always have to have something in your hands, even if it's just a tiny sticker. But you try to be such a good helper, too-- helping me turn off light switches, put clothes in the hamper, close doors... You really want to put on your own clothes, eat with a spoon, and do all sorts of things you see mommy and daddy do-- sometimes they're just too hard, but you never give up trying!


You are definately Mommy's girl. Your separation anxiety phase has officially begun and it breaks my heart to hear you cry every time I leave you with someone else. It breaks Daddy's heart, too, because even though you squeal & giggle when I just mention he's home (and even though the only word you seem to know is "daddy"), you don't want to be left with him unless I'm there too. (Of course, you always have fun together, it's just that initial getting-used-to-being-without-mommy shock.) You love to give hugs & slobbery wet kisses, but only for a second before you're off & running again. You play just fine on your own for awhile, as long as mommy's there and you can get my attention every so often. You want to feed yourself, but you also still want that bottle for your milk.

This phase-- this struggle between baby-hood and independence-- reminds me how a lot of grown-ups are with Christ's love-- we struggle for just the right amount of independence, wanting to grow in our relationship with Christ but still wanting to remain a baby, because it's so comfortable. It's something you'll face your entire life, little girl, but always remember that your mommy and daddy are here to help you grow to spiritual maturity and also to learn how to become an independent person.

You have such a love for life, Leah-- the funniest things make you laugh, like dropping things onto your head from way up high, peekaboo, tickling under your arms, jumping in your crib, and anything in the bathtub. You love to be outside, to play in the leaves, to see animals, and you love to dance and hear music. I look forward every day to seeing everything you'll learn, to seeing what will make you giggle. You remind me to stop and laugh every once in awhile, even if you don't feel well, or have had a rough day. You remind me to soak up life, because it is fleeting. You remind me that there are no worries that can't be handled with a little hug and some quiet time with Daddy.

Don't grow up too fast, little one! But know that as you do grow, Mommy & Daddy will be there by your side, capturing every moment.

Love, Mommy

More Fall Fun!

Today I took Leah to the NC State Fair. We are so lucky to have it so closeby. Brett didn't really care to go that much so we decided to go early in the morning to avoid the crowds. Everything we really wanted to do was open then, anyway. I had no idea Leah would like it as much as she did! From the minute we set foot on the fairgrounds, she seemed to be in awe. She giggled some even before we got to anything exciting.

She loved being around all the people, seeing all the different sites. But she especially loved the animals! We saw a lot of different kinds-- she seemed to especially love the cows, though. I wish I could have captured her expression when she looked at them, but it was hard to get on film. She just stared at them, sometimes pointing, sometimes trying to get a closer look. She even got to pet a baby chick in one area. It was hard to get a lot of good pictures by myself, but I did my best.

Leah's other favorite part was probably Huggies' toddler area. They had a soft area set up with a ball pit & a tunnel for little ones to climb around in. The best part for me was that they even had workers there to play with the kids, so I got to sit back & relax and Leah got to get out of her stroller to crawl around. Isn't it ironic that her favorite thing was the ball pit and we have one of those at home!! And of course, no trip to the fair is complete without something fried. She enjoyed a few French fries while we watched a clown. She had so much fun, she was asleep in her stroller before we even got to the parking lot. (Of course, that meant she didn't sleep once we got home, but she was in such a good mood the rest of the day, I didn't mind!)

When we got home, I couldn't resist the huge pile of leaves in our yard. Isn't it a rite of passage for kids to jump in leaves? Of course, I wouldn't exactly say Leah "jumped" but she really did think the leaves were funny! You can see more of these pictures on the website.