A year and half. Actually, by the time this publishes she’ll be closer to two than one.
She’s so much fun when she’s not screeching and making everyone go deaf or throwing a tantrum. Just because she doesn’t talk doesn’t mean she doesn’t understand when you talk to her. I’ll ask her to go get a book or throw something away or go get Olivia and she’ll go do it. She’s turning into this little person. She can do this mean Hector Salamanca face that cracks us up every time. She loves dancing and playing with Olivia. Truly, it’s been so nice how much these two love to play together.
Nicknames: Meals, Mealie, Squish, George
Weight: 21 lbs 10 oz
Length: 31.5 inches
Diaper size: 4
Shoe/clothing size: 3/18 months
Teeth: 10 (four upper and two molars, two lower front teeth and two molars)
Eating
She loves bananas, blueberries, raspberries, clementines, kiwi, and most fruits in general. She might eat tomatoes depending on the day. She’ll eat hamburger if it’s tacos. She likes plain Greek yogurt, macaroni and cheese, cottage cheese, cheese sticks, animal crackers, mini muffins, scrambled eggs (not fried or boiled), buns, jello, pizza (depends on the type), and a few other things. I’m sitting here thinking about the things she actually likes to eat because it’s hard.
There are things she’ll attempt to eat before throwing them on the floor. There are whole meals she will not even touch except to pick up and toss. Goldfish crackers will sometimes be eaten, or they will be crushed beneath her tiny baby fingers.
But Emelia loves to use her forks and spoons, and a napkin. When she’s done eating she’ll stack her dishes. Sippy cup and utensil neatly placed on her plate but jesus grab it before she happily tosses the entire shebang onto the floor. She let’s us know she’s finished by screeching, grabbing at her bib and arching to escape her high chair. Mealtimes are a BLAST.
We’re almost done working through the supply of frozen milk. I’m so grateful how much she loves her frozen breastmilk. She is pretty good in general drinking from sippy cups and straws. I had left her a total of three nights in the past few months and while she wasn’t thrilled to wake up in the middle of the night to a sippy of milk and her daddy, she dealt with it and moved on.
On the nursing front, she’s obsessed still. On average she’ll nurse five to six times a day, but mostly it’s more. Pretty much whenever I’m sitting on the couch. And the more sides she can do the better. Back and forth back and forth FOREVERRRRRRRR. She’s way more of an enthusiastic nurser than she was as a little baby.
Sleeping
She’s on her one nap a day and will sleep about an hour and a half, but there are times she’ll sleep three and a half hours and times she’ll take a shitty hour-long nap. I think she was in the midst of a sleep regression, but that could be getting better.
She goes down around 7:00 pm and wakes anywhere from 3:00 to 6:30 am to nurse. She is up for the day around 7:00 but sometimes sleeps until 8:30. I’ll take it, but I wish it was more consistently earlier in the morning when she first wakes up instead of feeling like the middle of the night.
It’s going well still getting her to bed. We get her pajamas on, brush her teeny teeth (which she LOOOOOVES), read a book or two, and then I nurse her in her room. Rarely does she fall asleep on me. Usually she’s frantically switching sides until she finally calms down, but seriously. It’s definitely not a relaxing time.
Milestones
Her physical therapist wouldn’t even recognize her now. She’s walking around like a boss. A boss that biffs it roughly 3,724 times a day, but still. Walking is life. She climbs everything and loves to explore. She likes to help with chores. Throwing things in the garbage, sweeping, using the dustpan, scrubbing the walls. She’s really good at picking up her toys and putting them back in the buckets. She wants to walk up the stairs holding the railing. Oy. But she’s good on the stairs, we’re still working on going down them.
She loves to stack blocks and throw her balls. She runs and it looks hilarious. A few nights ago she spun herself and in circles and fell everywhere. I’ve started letting her use crayons and watercolors and need to do it more with her because she loves it.
She makes attempts at putting her shoes and socks on, and she’s great and helping me dress and undress her.
Communication
She’s definitely not saying any words yet except Mama and Dada, but they’re not always intentional. But she babbles constantly. Nah nah nah! Bah bah bah! Ada!
She points to things she wants, but instead of asking politely, I usually just get high-pitched screams. Whenever she wants to nurse which is pretty much all the time, she points to the couch and runs to it. But like I said, she’s just understanding so much. The other day after she had breakfast she ran into the bedroom where I was coming out of the shower and I asked her if she had her muffins and YES. Yes, Mom, I did. She did the most pointed head nod yes. I can’t tell if this new little person thing is adorable or a little creepy because she’s so tiny.
Activities
Well, I’m taking an ECFE class with her for one-year-olds, as I did with Olivia. It’s good for her to be around other babies and without her sister, but separating is going to be hard. We’ve gone to two classes and all I do is walk over with the other parents to the table for the parenting education time and she’s WAILING in anticipation of me actually leaving the room. I took a mixed-age class over the winter session so Olivia could join and Emelia, even with her sister there, cried every time for most of the separation time. Next week they will start the gradual separation so we’ll see how that goes. My guess is not well.
Otherwise, we’re doing walks, especially in the nearby town along the river on the weekends. Occasionally I’ll take her into stores for errands and she stares around in fascination. Anything outside the four walls of our house fascinates her.
Health
Olivia had some sort of virus/cold about a month ago and Emelia got a runny nose for a few days during that, but surprisingly nothing more. She continues to be remarkably healthy thanks to our near-constant isolation.
There are some nights I swear she’s teething, but no more teeth have poked through. It’s interesting because she now has all four molars, but doesn’t have her upper and lower lateral incisors. I actually had to Google it because I swore she was just missing those teeth altogether, though apparently, that can sometimes happen. Getting the molars before the incisors, not just missing teeth. Still, I’m planning on bringing it up to her doctor at her appointment.
Also, and I don’t think I ever mentioned it on her updates, but when she’s out in the cold, her hands and feet turn an alarming shade of blue/purple. I was told by a doctor a while back that this is normal up until age two, but Olivia never had this. Like, there was one afternoon when it wasn’t frigid out, but the wind was intensely cold and I was walking with the girls up the street and back. I stupidly didn’t put Emelia’s gloves on because I didn’t think it was cold enough, and when we got home, both her hands were purple. I’m going to mention this to her doctor because it’s weird as hell and freaks me out even though her lips are still pink and she’s not having any breathing issues.
Likes
Nursing, coloring, reading her books, taking her books out of her bookshelf, brushing her teeth, climbing on to the couch, climbing onto the fireplace, playing with her sister’s toys, her Pop books (her little green one pictured above has been loved to death), throwing balls, stacking her blocks, screeching, walking, playing at the playground, trashing my house, getting into the one cupboard we don’t have baby-proofed, visiting me in my office and then trashing it, going outside, playing with her sister.
Dislikes
When her sister is dropped off at preschool, when you open her door to retrieve something she threw and close it again and get back in the driver’s seat without taking her out, basically any time Chris and I leave her in general, not letting her nurse when she wants to, changing her diaper when she wants to nurse (these are the times she throws the most epic tantrums), and when Olivia is herding her around like a sheep and she doesn’t want to. Girl knows what she wants.
See more of Emelia’s monthly updates here.
