18 months

Happy New Year! On Jan 1st our little Rowan turned 18 months. A lot has changed since October! Staying true to my word here is our (super long) quarterly update.

-At 16 months we started transitioning to one nap a day. Rowan was not wanting to sleep for that second nap and would just play and talk in her bed. I tried fighting it for a couple weeks because working nights, those 2 naps a day were so great for me to sleep too. But I was also excited to have our morning free up and not be tied to the house twice a day. We started by eating lunch at 1130 and going to bed by 1215 or so. She was super cranky by nap time and would fall asleep easily. Since then we have been able to move it back to 1230 or 1 for naptime. If she sleeps anything over 2 hours I consider that a successful nap, if it is less than that, she is usually a little cranky for the rest of the day. She will still wake herself up from nap if she poops so we try to get her to run around before naptime so that happens before. We also dropped the song at naptime. We just read a book or two and go to bed now, mimicking her bedtime routine.

-Her schedule now is wake up 630-7am, eat breakfast, play, eat snack around 10, play, eat lunch around 12, nap, snack, play, dinner around 530, bedtime 730. We dropped bottles around 17 months finally. I was hesitant to do so because out of a bottle she was taking a substantial amount of milk from that route and I didn't want to just cut it out. She was eating enough cottage cheese, cheese and yogurt that I felt ok with her dairy intake even if she didn't drink as much milk as before. She is still stubborn about drinking milk out of a sippy cup. She constantly asks for water instead. On rare occasions we have given her a bottle in the morning if she wakes early and she will still chug 7 oz of milk, yet if she wakes normal and we give her a sippy cup, she will take 1 oz maybe. As long as she drinks a tall sippy cup of milk over the course of the day I'm good.

-Along with dropping a nap and dropping bottles, we are also trying to drop the binky....gasp. At first we are just dropping it at night since she is tired and never usually fights us when going to bed. Rowan's baby cousin Gareth was born on Jan 2 and Matt told her that night she was giving her binky to her cousin to use. I didn't think that would go over that well but she took to it. She asked for it and Matt just reminded her where it was and pushed the fact that she still has blankets and teddy. So the rest of this week she has gone to nighttime without the binky. We still let her have it for naptime because as nana says, no one should disturb "sacred naptime." :) We will cross that bridge later.

-I think she eats pretty well for her age, although I don't have a lot of kids to compare her to. She will try anything and still plays the this bite for that bite game. Meat other than chicken can be hard for her little teeth to chew through. So chicken and tofu (also "chicken") are her two go-to main "meats." She will eat/try most veggies except broccoli, hates it. Her favorites are asparagus or sweet potatoes. She doesn't like a variety of fruit still; bananas, apples and oranges are her comfort zone. Favorite snacks include pretzels and hummus, apples and pb, bunnies, veggie straws, raisins, yogurt and cottage cheese. She still eats oatmeal with cubes every morning for breakfast, although on special occasion daddy makes her eggs too. She is still weird about noodles and sandwiches.

-She fits into 12-18 mo tops and 18-24 mo bottoms. I tried buying her some 24 mo outfits for family pictures in Nov and they were all way too big. Her top half is def still too small for that. It's a bit of a bummer because she was gifted a lot of hand-me-downs for winter in that size but all the necks are saggy and don't keep her as warm. She just got new sneakers from Nana and Papa for Christmas, size 7! She still fits into her size 6 shoes but all the 5s are too snug.

-I haven't adjusted cloth diapers in forever, her little buns have stayed the same size I guess. She wears size 4 disposable for nighttime. I have been thankful this winter the cloth diapers fit her better and we don't leak through our pants on a daily basis.

-We are also in the early stages of potty training. Rowan started showing an interest at the end of Nov to talk about the potty, want to sit on it and "try" like momma. I have always let her come with me when I use the bathroom and I talk out loud about how big girls use the potty and that is where our pee-pee and poo-poo go. I guess she thought it was cool and wanted in on it. I sat her on the big toilet once and she actually went #2. She was so proud of herself. So I decided it wouldn't hurt to get a toilet for her. We tried the one that sits in the toilet for our house and a little one of her own for grandma's house. She did fine with both at first but after a couple weeks, she back tracked and started almost being scared of the big toilet. She would run and poop in corners again and not want to try at all. I figured it was just part of training since I heard of other kids who act interested and then digress. So I didn't make a big deal about it and we stopped asking. Then when we were at my parents' a lot over the holidays she was all about making potty on her little toilet there. So we bought a little toilet for our house too and she since has done better again. I really am not pushing for her to be potty trained at this young of an age since she can't do any part of it independently. Although if she wants to always poop in the toilet and not in a diaper, I could totally go for that! So at this point that is what we are working on and if pee-pee comes too that is a bonus :) It cracks me up though because she gets really shy about going the bathroom in front of us at times. She has made Matt wait outside of the bathroom while she goes potty and as soon as he steps out and closes the door she goes. For me, she has put her hand on my head and pushed it to look at the ground and not at her. Then she will poop and lift my head back up.

-She loves to do puzzles, craft with play dough, play momma to her baby, ride her pony, play tent with daddy, dance with momma, read books and touch things that she shouldn't.

-She is talking up a storm lately. She has learned all her animals and can name some of them off. She can make a couple of their sounds too like cow and horse.

-She can now count up to 3.

-She knows all the names of our family members but chances are if you have a 2 syllable name, she will just call you by the first. Such as Man for Amanda or Al for Alex. She can not say her g's so my mom is called "this," her generic name for anything she can't say, and my dad is mike....for now. Yet she can say Shelby like it is no big deal. It cracks me up. Shelby was actually her first family name outside momma and dada that was intentional.

-When she gets in trouble for touching things that can hurt her, she has to sit in her time out chair for 10 sec. Then we talk about what she touched and why that was a bad choice. At the end of these little talks she started saying sorry and wanting hugs, which is super cute.

-Her manners are all understandable but have to be prompted most of the time.

-When we pray at night she says a big AMEN to end it.

-Lynley and her are best buds, they squeal when they see each other and play so well together. It's precious that they have each other and I am thankful for their little friendship.

-She loved Christmas time and the stories about baby Jesus. Her favorite Christmas song was "Away in a Manger" and I sang that a lot over the past month.

-Her hair is long enough to put into one low ponytail in the back and then I pin her wispy bangs to the side. She looks so old when I do her hair like this but it's adorable.

-She loves to march with me around the house. We each have a pull toy on a string that follow behind us and we march, march, march. We sing "Elephants on parade, elephants on parade, march march, march march." I don't know where that came from but it became our stomping song. She usually chooses the dog Alicia gave her for her bday and she gives me the zebra. She is content to do this for a good 15 min.

-Her bath to shower ratio is probably 10:90. She loves the shower and frankly it's a heck of a lot easier than kneeling for 20 min. Now that it is cold out though and the shower is drafty, she stands real close to my legs and plays. I try to get her to move around but she slowly migrates back to being underfoot and under my water stream. She hates having a cup of water dumped over her head but could care less if the water from the shower is streaming down her face. She just keeps wiping it back and playing.

-She still wants to be involved with everything I do. If I let her, she usually is happy and not whining. She helped me blow dry my hair today :) But seriously, everything from dusting, cooking, vacuuming, laundry, picking things up, brushing teeth, showering...if I am doing it, she wants in. Cute if I have all the time in the world, slightly stressful when I am on a time crunch.

-She has all her top teeth in and all but one bottom tooth in. She recently had some plaque build up on her front lower tooth that I had to scrape off. She went to the dentist with daddy for his check up and they took a peak at her teeth too. They said we just have to brush better, parent fail.

-She doesn't sign as much now that she is talking. Lynley did the same thing when her vocabulary exploded so I bet she will circle back around to signing again soon. If you prompt her to use her hands to tell you something she usually will.

-She has started to climb things, not like some moms have told me about but she is interested. She can get herself up on the couch now and down off our bed. She tries to climb on the kitchen chairs which results in her dangling her feet off the floor while her upper body is trying to pull itself up....and of course grunting loudly at the strain of it all. She stands on her pony like a trick girl instead of sitting on him. She will climb on the side of the bed but then not know what to do after that and get herself stuck.

-She loves my water bottles and carries them all around the house. We are trying to get her to sit for snack time because it drives daddy crazy to find crumbs all over the living room.

-Her and daddy like to go to the basement to explore and play. Matt has his guitar down there and will play her songs and sing to her. I love that they have special time like that.

-She is obsessed with the clicker, if it is anywhere in sight she is fixated on it. Same goes with our smart phones although we do let her hold them from time to time. She is big into holding everything. "I hold," may be her favorite statement.

-She likes to play peek-a-boo and hiding games with us.

-She gets giggling fits over really weird things. This past weekend my mom was reading Christmas cards on our wall and said the name Charlotte, she started cracking up. So my mom said it again and got her rolling. Who knows what gets her going but it's really cute.

-She likes to wear hats, boots and gloves, which with record breaking cold weather this winter, I am thankful. Our high yest was 4 degrees, when I got off work and was driving home in the morning the temp was reading -9.

-She loves shoes and bags of all kinds. No discrimination of size, color or purpose, she will take them all. She also likes to hoard. She will carry all 7 blankets and 3 animals around with her before bedtime or want to carry 6 books to the car with her. It can never just be one thing.

All in all, since she has turned one she has been super fun. We still have hard days with teeth coming in or naps not going well. But the good def. outweighs the bad of this age. I am trying to soak it in because I know the disciplining stage is right around the corner from what other mommas tell me. She has grown up so much to me and I don't see any baby left in her. Matt and I have just been able to start entertaining conversations of kid 2 because I miss so much of the past 18 months of her life. I miss her snuggly on our chests, I miss her crawling around the house, I miss her carefully taking a step or two before crashing down, I miss her nursing, I miss her just taking everything around her in. There has been joy for each stage and a bit of sadness knowing time will steal away these memories more quickly than you are willing to let them go. But as she grows more into the little person God made her to be, I fall in love with her more and more. I connect with her, I understand her, I communicate with her, I teach her and I love the relationship we have together. So into the future we march, excited for the memories yet to be made. Love you Rowan McKinley!

 

Christmas Card Pic 2013

 

 

Photos taken at 17 months by Gina :)