Emelia at 15 months

We’re just chugging along here, living life with another toddler. She and Olivia have been having so much fun together and this baby is getting into EVERYTHING. Climbing everything. Purposely being mischievous. She’s definitely been keeping me on my toes. Olivia calls her “George” and pretends she’s her pet monkey when she plays grocery store. It’s the funniest thing so now we call her George on random occasions. Same with Hamilton. No clue why Olivia started calling her that, but some days, Emelia is AKA Hamilton.

Emelia is my little dancer. She’s always grooving her body to any sort of music she hears. They both love the “I’m a Gummy Bear” song, and Emelia will just jam out to it.

Nicknames: Meals, Mealie, George, Hamilton, Fussy Jane

Weight: about 19 pounds

Length: about 29 inches

Diaper size: 4

Shoe/clothing size: 3 and 12-18 months, but can fit 12 month pants and 18 month tops. She has short legs, apparently.

Teeth: 6 (still four upper, two lower) I’m convinced she doesn’t have any more in there.

Eating

When I write these updates, I like to read what I wrote in the last post. What’s the same: Still likes the idea of eating. Still screeches when she’s in the vicinity of food/senses we’re eating without her. Still frantically wants to get in her chair for dinner. What’s different: Now couldn’t give two fucks about food. 95% of it anyway.

Do I call her a picky eater? I’m hesitant to label her like that as she’s still not even a year and a half. But let’s face it. She’s picky. Or at least she is compared to how much Olivia loved (and still loves) to eat.

Favorite foods:

• Greek yogurt and frozen blueberries
• Pizza
• Tacos (meat, cheese, and greek yogurt/sour cream)
• Spaghetti
• Apparently my tomato basil parmesan soup
• Any and all bread
• Veggie straws/Cheezits
• Most fruits
• Baked beans (Not to be confused with literally any other bean because all beans used to be consumed. That’s no longer the case.)
• Squash
• Cheese rollups

Dislikes:

• Everything else. To be thrown on the floor or smashed in the hair. May or may not contain shouts of disgust.

True, there are a few things she hates less than others now. But wow. Her preferences are pretty dismal, especially when you take out carbs. She used to love eggs, scrambled or over hard. Now she throws them. She used to love peanut butter toast and eh, it’s a hit or miss. The other night we had drumsticks in the air fryer, green beans, and acorn squash. Chicken = thrown. Green beans = hurled to ground, screeching grunts with every chuck. Acorn squash = GIMME! GIVE MEH ALLLL THE SQUASH OMG!

So combine this with the fact that her weight gain has slowed the last few months, and I’m finding myself way more focused on mealtimes than I ever was with Olivia. Still, she’s learning to use a spoon like a champ. She’s also doing really well now with drinking from sippy cups, so I’ve been giving her frozen milk from my stash. Thankfully, despite my high-lipase milk, she likes it. (It smells and tastes soapy, which is nothing bad, but ew.)

I try to give her three meals a day, but that doesn’t always happen. But she’s nursing still quite a bit, her usual five times a day or so. She still loves to do her acrobatics while nursing, so it takes a lot of focus on my part to keep her from falling off the couch or something and taking my nipple with her.

• 

• 

Sleeping

One day, my 15-month old will sleep through the night, but day is not today. She continues to wake once at night, at varied times, as early as 10:30 (fuck me) or as late as 5:30 (hardly ever). I will start the bedtime process with her as early as 6:30 and she’s usually down by seven. Her wake up in the morning varies from 6:30 am to 9:30 am on rare days. There’s no rhyme or reason to it, but for the most part, she’s up around 7:00 or so.

We’ve been sort of in this transition stage with naps. Sometimes I think she’s ready to go to one nap a day, and sometimes not. If it’s one nap, she goes down around 1:00, but otherwise, her naps continue to be about 10:00 am and 3:00 pm. I think she’s capable of one nap a day, but I’m not. Olivia just went back to preschool and having her not here to distract Emelia makes for a long morning. So nap time especially on those days is a life-saver being that I don’t go out anymore.

Emelia does do well with going in her crib though. She’s got this routine she’s come to expect and when I start getting her into her pajamas she’s yawning widely, so it’s kind of like Pavlov’s dogs. I’ll nurse her, turn her white noise on, kiss her, and lay her down. Usually, she babbles a bit before going to sleep, or she’ll fuss and cry, but settles eventually so I don’t have to go back in there.

Milestones

She’s not walking yet, but it’s getting closer. At her last physical therapy appointment, she was stiff-legged walking with us holding her one hand. Now, I’ve seen her right leg walk a little more natural, but she’s walking pretty stiff still with her left leg. So I just don’t think she’ll get to the point of walking until she has a more natural gait. But she continues to fly around the house on her hands and knees and is climbing stairs like a champ.

She also loves putting things into containers. She didn’t show much interest in it before, but now she gets so excited when you give her a container of things for her to dump out and place back in.

Every kitchen cabinet is no longer safe. She’s into everything. She also loves climbing up into the kids chair that Olivia will sit in downstairs when she’s coloring or eating a snack.

She loves throwing stuff, doing downward dog, pushing the kitchen chairs around, and sit in her little couch. She’s busy. She’s into everything.

Communication

Screaming continues to be her main form of communication. But she is understanding more and more. Like, I can tell her, “Emelia, go get your baby,” and point to her little Fisher-Price baby and she’ll crawl over there, get it, and bring it to me. Speaking of which, she rarely puts things in her mouth anymore. Now she’s alllllll about bringing things to you. Lint, carpet fuzz, suspicious things, scraps of paper. She says things like, “EH!” and “ADA!” “AH RAH RAH RAH!” Lately, it’s been “BAH BAH BAH!”

I’ve been trying to point to things when I talk about them, but she won’t mimic it. Her favorite thing is when she’s doing something and I tell her very sternly she can’t do that, she’ll dissolve into the biggest belly laughs. Like, I KNOW I’m going to pay for this later, but when she’s nursing, she’ll hit my chest (not hard enough to hurt me) I’ll say, Ouch! and she thinks it’s the funniest thing ever. So of course we do it over and over and you can say I told you so later when she’s three and decking me in the face or something because OMG MOM FINDS THIS SO FUNNY!

Activities

We’re starting another ECFE class that I’m taking both girls to that starts this week and we’re all looking forward to it. Otherwise, she spends a lot of time exploring the house, or hanging out in her sister’s room dancing to music.

Health

Thanks to COVID, she’s been doing great. I joke, but really, I’m thankful for it. I know she’s going to have next to no immune system after this, but what are you going to do?

At worst, she’s on her second yeast infection (babies have so many folds and creases) on the inside nook of her leg, so we’re on another round of Nystatin. The ten days finished today and I swear I can see it coming back.

She’s had a few days where I think she’s teething, but even that’s been pretty stagnant.

Likes

Doing her downward dog so she’s upside down on the floor, getting into trouble exploring, climbing into her play chair, standing up in her play chair, walking around with us holding her hand or her walker, playing in her sister’s room, music to dance to, being held, reading her books, baths, yelling.

Dislikes

It could be worse, but I don’t think she’s a fan of car rides. She hates when I walk out of the room, put her down, or really try to do anything in her presence that’s not nursing her or carrying her around.

See more of Emelia’s monthly updates here.