Emelia at 19.5 months

I’m two weeks late on this 19.5 month post and I need to get it out because she changes so much from week to week.

Emelia is growing into this little toddler-person that may not know how to talk, but she can definitely communicate and she’ll very clearly let you know what she wants. Chris and I were talking the other day about how she will do these certain mannerisms just like Olivia, but she really does have this different personality. Her temperament is a lot milder. Whereas Olivia would throw these spectacular tantrums periodically, Emelia just seems to throw the normal kind, and they’re over pretty quickly. It will be interesting to see how she is when she gets a little older, but I’m noticing a lot more of an even-temper with this one (thank GOD).

She loves to give you her stink eye and then burst into giggles. She loves practicing her LOUD VOICE. And she’s mischievous. Like her physical therapist liked to say, “Trouble with a capital E.”

I give her a lot of credit because she spends a lot of her days running feral in the basement while Chris and I work in our offices down the hall. She comes to visit us, causes trouble, and then goes racing back out again. It will be so much better for all of us to have a babysitter here, who is starting very soon.

Nicknames: Meals, Mealie, George, Squish

Weight: about 23 lbs

Length: about 32 inches

Diaper size: 4

Shoe/clothing size: 4/ 18 months and 18-24 months

Teeth: 12 (8 upper, 4 lower) Her 2 top incisors are starting to come through

Eating

I wouldn’t say her eating habits have gotten any better since her 18-month post. She still loves most fruits, except for apples, and she especially loves berries. She’s not a meat person and really only eats taco meat and chicken nuggets (especially if they include sweet and sour sauce). Her breakfasts consist of plain Greek yogurt with frozen wild blueberries and two mini muffins. Toast is a hit or a miss (usually a miss) and she’ll eat scrambled eggs, but not fried or hard-boiled. Lunches are usually cottage cheese with berries, or a peanut butter sandwich, grilled cheese, or macaroni and cheese.

We do pizza for family night on Fridays and while she’s pretty good at eating take-out pizza, she won’t eat the wood-fired pizza Chris makes which is a damn shame. She likes spaghetti and meatballs (mostly the meatballs) and will eat shrimp Fettucine alfredo. There was one night that she seemed to break out in a rash on her body after eating the pasta the shrimp was on, and we haven’t given her shrimp since. Both of my kids seem to get these food rashes but are always OK after an allergist visit. So who knows what is going on.

She’s still doing well using her fork and spoon. I tried cereal in milk for the first time and she had fun attempting to use her spoon. I don’t know if it was too hard, or if she just didn’t want to eat the cereal, but she didn’t make much progress with it.

Her frozen milk supply finished up and while I wish I could continue to give it to her, she’s really enjoying her whole milk.

I’m still nursing her quite a bit throughout the day and then once in the early morning. In fact, anytime I’m sitting on the couch it’s free game to come sit by me and nurse. So if I want to sit down while she’s awake, I better get ready to pull out a boob.

Sleeping

Lately, Emelia’s been on two and a half or three hours naps which have been amazing since her nap time is basically my work time. She goes down really well about 1:00 pm and will usually sleep until about 3:30 or sometimes 4 if we’re lucky.

I don’t know if she’s been teething lately, or if it’s a sleep regression, but she’s been taking a long time to go to sleep at night. I rarely need to go in there and nurse her again, but she’s up there happily babbling to herself for a solid 45 minutes sometimes. The good news is she sleeps through the night now 99 percent of the time.

She goes down around 7:00 and sleeps anywhere from 7 to 8:30 am, waking once in the early morning to nurse. I’ve started letting her sleep with her Dumbo lovie at night, but she still wants to be in her sleep sack. She loves brushing her teeth at night and we’ll let her use the floss picker. She’s still rarely falling asleep on me nursing in the evening, but she still enjoys it. And I know these things just don’t last, so I’m going to keep doing it as long as possible.

Milestones

This kid thinks walking is life. We can’t go on a walk around the neighborhood without her demanding to get out of her stroller and walk. Luckily, she’s getting a little faster.

Of course with that, comes more boldness and falling more. Seriously, I should probably get her in to a chiropractor appointment. She loves racing around the house. Bonus points if she’s being chased.

She does stairs like a champ now, and even wants to sometimes walk up the stairs (luckily, she doesn’t try that without someone there with her) but it’s nice to be able to let her go up and down as she pleases.

She’s definitely a climber. Favorite climbing things include the fireplace, the couch, and the kitchen chairs.

Everything is game to be thrown out in the trash: cups, unopened mail, her stuffed animals, Olivia’s stuffed animals. I’m scared to know what she’s actually tossed that we weren’t aware of.

She is really good at cleaning up especialy if you sing the cleanup song to her. She also loves taking the wipes out and “cleaning” with them.

We have some balls of different textures and she loves to play with them. Throws them everywhere. She really favors her left hand when she throws or holds her utensils so I wonder if she’s going to be a leftie like her mama.

She can’t really take her own shoes off yet unless they’re just the slip-on ones, but she tries really hard to put them on. In fact, when she knows she’s going out, she has to grab everyone’s shoes for them.

Communication

Still not talking. At her 18-month check a few weeks ago, her doctor wanted to send her to the audiologist to check her hearing because of Chris’s own hearing loss. But as we assumed, she has perfect hearing. She’s really only saying “Mama” and one time recently she said “Ma” when I was pouring her a cup of milk before dinner. In ECFE, we were told they wanted to see 50 words between now and two years and she has…two? She loves to say “Dadada!” and “Bah!” “Nah!” and some more complex babbling, but isn’t really making any words yet.

But that’s not to say she isn’t vocal. She babbles all the livelong day, and points and in general gets her point across much of the time. So we’ll see what happens between now and her second birthday.

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Activities

I took the Wonderful Ones class for ECFE, which was a class with four or five other babies. Usually, the classes are for 15 weeks, but with COVID, it was six, which of course isn’t a very long time to 1) make those connections with the other parents and 2) get used to separation time. She separated I think three times total and the first two she cried her head off with the other COVID babies until we came back ten minutes later. The last day of class, go figure, was her best. She only cried for a few minutes after I left and then happily played with one of the teachers until I returned about 15 minutes later because she was the only baby not crying.

Otherwise, she loves playing outside and going for walks. She’s discovered how fun playgrounds are and will go down the slide several dozen times. Plus, it gets her urge for climbing out, since she can act like a little monkey there. Quite the daredevil she is.

She loves getting out and running errands with us. Basically any outing these days is OK in her book.

We’re having a babysitter start a few days a week, so she can start getting used to another caregiver before she starts at a daycare center in the fall when Olivia goes off to kindergarten.

Health

She’s been perfectly healthy except for some teething here lately with her top incisors coming in. Actually, her doctor wanted us to talk to the dentist about her teeth taking so long to come in because some kids apparently just don’t have their baby teeth. WTF, when I was thinking that, I thought it was me just being paranoid, I didn’t think that actually could happen. But I can see the sharp point of each incisors coming in on the top, though the bottom still just has her two front teeth and one-year molars.

In the last update, I talked about her hands and feet turning blue when they were cold, but with the warmer weather now, I don’t have a chance to see if it’s still happening, and I probably won’t until next winter.

Likes

Playing outside (bonus if it’s with the neighborhood kids), nursing, throwing balls, throwing things in general, Toby, playing with Olivia’s play makeup, being read to, and reading her sister’s books with Dad and Olivia before bed, brushing her teeth, drinking milk from a sippy, climbing, and sitting on things. Benches, camping chairs, you name it. She’s sitting on it.

Dislikes

Being left, picking her up when she doesn’t want to, going to sleep at night (naps are still cool), when I shut the door to my office, diaper changes (she’ll squirm away as fast as she can), most food in general, and when her sister is bugging her.

We just set up the pool and it’s already hitting 100 degrees. Summer is officially here.

See more of Emelia’s monthly updates here.