18 months

Whew! Its been a whirlwind couple of months, with Thanksgiving and Christmas, dealing with a mice problem, everyone being sick at some point, Derek taking comp and graduating power school, and we’ve spent the last two weeks relaxing and spending quality time together. Madeline turned 18 months this year. Its her second half birthday and I feel like 18 months have flown by. I can’t believe she’ll be 2 soon, though it seems like such a huge difference from the place we are now. I was going to do an official 18 month shoot when we went to the beach this week but we forgot the memory card and she had a fit about the sand, so it wasn’t meant to be. Hopefully I’ll have real pictures soon, but as for now, we’ll have to stick with iphone pictures.

*My favorite outfit*

*Wearing a tutu from Aunt Jessie and some tights*

At her appointment she weighed 26.5 pounds and was 33.5 inches long. She is now in the 85 percentile for height and the 75 percentile for weight. The doctor says she looks good and seems to be right on schedule, so that is good news. The doctor seems to think Madeline should be drinking more cow’s milk, but she is still nursing 3 times a day and eating her weight in cheese, so I think she is ok. The doctor also says that she thinks Madeline is going to be flat footed and walk on the outside of her feet. She got nothing from me but my bad feet apparently. And maybe my temper…

*Her hair is growing so much*

*fast asleep with her brand new gigi*

Lets see, what has been new the past 3 months. She walks, runs, almost jumps, and dances like a pro. Consequently, she never stops moving. Ever. Madeline talks non stop as well; its mostly unintelligible babble and it is so adorable. She has so many words now too and can even put two together on occasion. New words are water (said like agua or awa), please (she will say please baba, please cheese, please whatever), more (also more whatever), thank you, bless you (she started saying this when people sneezed without us teaching her…so amazing), kitty, meow (what she normally calls cats), apple (said constantly…everything is apple and when she wants to make a joke she purposely calls something an apple when she knows its not), car, truck, birdie, turtle, bear, really almost any animal, socks (which sounds like hot), milk (milt), hot, uh huh, sorry, I love you (only vaguely sounds like I love you), maddy (in reference to herself and her cousin), baby, books, orajel, hi and bye followed by someone’s name, almost everyone’s name (she does struggle with granny lynn but she makes the same weird babble every time…its so cute), strawberry, teeth, potty, store, fishy, bike, dolphin (if you can believe it, though it sounds nothing like dolphin and she only says it when she sees the card), poo poo, eat, bath, diaper (diapy), and probably a million other things I can’t think of right now. She will repeat pretty much anything. Seems like she picks up a new word every day, or twice a day…she is such a sponge.

 

*Madeline’s idea of playing with stickers…she puts them on her face and everyone else’s face as well and says “Petttyyy”*

*Her new train/play table, which is really fun to sit on and to sit in the drawers*

*Lolly and Pops singing “Lollypop”*

*First pigtails over Christmas break*

*Road tripping in style*

Food wise, she eats anything and everything we eat. Right now she is obsessed with apples and ask for them constantly. I think it might be a teething thing. She likes fruit, noodles, steamed veggies with butter, and anything Derek grills (she downed a steak last name like no one’s business). She loves tomatoes, cheese, cuties (clementines), and yogurt. Feeding her has its ups and downs; she goes through stages where she doesn’t want to sit long enough to eat and barely has anything, to days where she eats non stop. Sometimes I worry about her but she will definitely let us know when she is hungry, so I try not to force feed her too much when she is having a non eating day.

*Super nutritious dinner…I forgot to mention that she loves pickles, especially bread and butter pickles*

 

*First time eating marshmellows after roasting them at the Christmas lights. We have real pictures of this somewhere. I think its safe to say she was a fan. That whole night was great, she rode with her head out the window looking at the Christmas lights saying “ohhh” and “petty”*

Imaginary play has really started to kick in. She loves her play kitchen and play food. She is obsessed with all things baby and this extends to her baby dolls, which she rocks, hugs, feeds, and puts night night. Blocks and stacking toys are still pretty popular and with the addition to her new train table, courtesy of her Aunt Julie and Uncle Ryan, she is playing train as well. She is more into reading now than she ever was before but most of the time we only make it through about 2 seconds of a book before we discard it for another one. By the time story time is over we’ve probably read about 3 pages and taken every book off the shelf. Painting and drawing are also favorites and she asks to do them every day, especially painting. She knows how to hold a crayon correctly, or at least mostly correct. Recently she has started to ask to go outside and she loves taking a walk to feed the ducks and riding in her new bike from Lolly and Pops.

*Painting even happens in the bathtub*

She has also started to sort things. She can match colors most of the time, but won’t do it if she doesn’t want to, which is a lot of the time. She likes to take her clothes out of the hamper and put them back in over and over and over again. She’ll seriously do it for hours. She likes to move her toys from bin to bin as well and also takes things in and out of her play kitchen cabinet. Oh! She also gets water out of the door of the play kitchen and pretend drinks it. So cute!

*Pretending to go night night in the baby’s crib*

The holiday season was long and drawn out, so it’s a good thing she really liked opening presents this year. She even tried to open her cousins presents! It was pretty fun to see her to really understand the concept of presents. She smiles and laughs all the time, makes jokes, gets jokes, loves to hide under the cabinet or anywhere and pop out to say boo, loves tickles and tickling, knows what she wants and how to get it.

*I only have photos of Hanukkah presents for some reason, but these were the first she opened anyway*

*Hanging out with her future husband*

So that is about all I can think of, though I’m sure I’m missing so much. This little girl is amazing and is constantly surprising us with all she knows and can do. Being her mom is exhausting but so much fun now.