Olivia at 16.5 months

And suddenly, she’s a little girl. Kind of a baby, kind of a toddler, kind of makes me want to curl up in a corner and cry because mah baby!!!!

I’m not crazy, right? She looks like a little girl now? Gah.

We celebrated my mom’s birthday at the end of February. I had to include this picture, because I realize I’m not in any others in this post. Wah wah.

We also celebrated her second Transferversary March 25th. You can read that post here.

You can see all her past updates here. We don’t have a height and weight this month because Home Girl was doing some major teething and I thought it was too much to ask of her when simply looking at her the wrong way sends her into full blown meltdown mode.

Nicknames: Ollie, Monkey, Bug

Weight: ?
Length: ?
Diaper size: 4
Shoe size/Clothing Size: 4, but fits some 3s still/ wears 12-18 month clothing and —sniff— moving into some 2T
Teeth: 7 (4 up and three down) and getting her molars

Eating: Since she isn’t on cow’s milk, I’m still nursing once in the early morning and about 4-5 more times during the day. We’ve been working through the stash of frozen milk. I want to make it to 2 before introducing cow’s milk. We’ll see how far I make it. Otherwise, she’s continuing to be a bit picky now about foods. She will always eat cheese and fruits. Loves veggie straws, but is now scoffing at other dry snacks that she used to love: Cinnamon Life, Kix and Cheerios. So that’s awesome. She has been doing a lot better at eating meat, and only eats some vegetables, like cucumber, tomatoes (technically a fruit) and carrots (kind of). Blueberries, avocado, yogurt, and Mexican food continues to be her favorite, though now that she can actually eat eggs, those are pretty high on her list now too. She’s had NO reaction to them anymore, so that’s been pretty awesome. She’s pretty good at telling us she’s “all done” by clapping, but sometimes she informs us by smushing food in her hair or throwing it on the floor.

Sleeping: You guys, I don’t want to jinx anything, but she is a great sleeper. At least due in part to Motrin. She will go down between 7 and 8:00 and sleep until about 5:30, when she wakes to nurse and then goes right back to sleep. She will sleep then anywhere from 7 to 8:30 a.m. I would say at least once a week Chris is putting her down, meaning she isn’t nursed to sleep, but she does well with it.

Milestones: She’s now discovered how to climb up on our downstairs couch by herself and is very proud of it. God-forbid you offer to give her a leg up. She loves to help with any chores, including bringing her wet diapers to the garbage, throwing them in and closing the garbage. Mimics us “wiping” the floor, and will put her clothes in the laundry hamper. She likes to practice brushing her teeth once we’ve brushed them, she walks backwards, is practically running at times, and tries to “walk” up steps. We’re still practicing going down the steps on her tummy backwards, but she continuously wants to turn around. She’s good at going up the stairs.

Communication: She’s babbling like crazy, starting to actually kind of say more than the usual “mama” and “dada.” I caught her saying a version of “Where’s Dada?” and something that sounded very much like her friend, Jaxon’s name. She is starting to say “Uh oh” when she drops something and “Whoa!” which is pretty much the cutest thing ever. I taught her how to sign “please” when she was screeching at me one day because she wanted a drink of my smoothie. It took her two prompts before she caught on and signs it like a champ now. It was never in our plans to do sign language with her, but I may teach her a few more strictly for my own entertainment.

Activities: She continues to be a bit shy at the library Story Time, but is paying more attention when the librarian is reading the books. We’ve been playing in the kids area more for something to do during the days. She loves to watch the other kids there. I started checking out some of the non-board kids books, but looks like her attention span still isn’t there, unless I read them to her during lunch.

She is thriving at ECFE in the 12-18 month class. It’s crazy how when we first started, she refused to sit still during circle time, and now she sits with us the whole time and participates. Right before snack time, we always read our babies a book before they go wash their hands, and she knows to go get a book, sit down in my lap and will return it to the basket afterwards. She’s so adorable during snack time I could cry, and she has been doing great at the 30-40 min separation time as the parents do a meeting in the other room.

Otherwise, we’ve been checking out a few indoor play places with our friends, and hitting up the aisles at Target and Toys R Us.

We’ve had a few nice days over 50° and have been playing at the different parks in the area. She’s at such a fun age where she can actually play at the playgrounds. The slide has become one of her favorite things.

She just moved to the Walker room at church and while I was nervous to see how she’d do, she surprised us and lasted the whole time.

Health: She had a long bout of a stomach flu in which she lost 7% of her body weight. She’s been healthy though, overall, save for her teething. We’ve been doing Motrin for her for the evenings she’s been fussy and it’s been helping tremendously at night. I feel guilty for giving it to her every night, but she clearly needs it.

She’s also been a lot more active lately which means more bumps and bruises. Currently she is rocking a bruised cheek and forehead—two different injuries, the cheek being a smash into the playground steps and who knows where the forehead one came from.

Likes: Playground slides, eating (big surprise), nursing, telling her something Very Interesting. She loves learning new things, when we point out things to her, like the birds in the air or cars that go by when we’re on walks. She is good at sitting in her stroller, but loves playing at the playgrounds. She loves feeding her babies, watching Daniel Tiger, Sesame Street and Curious George.

Dislikes: Reading books. The horror! How could this have appeared in her “dislikes” category? For the last two weeks, coincidently when she’s been teething, she wants nothing to do with us reading to her. In fact, she will vehemently slap the books out of our hands any time we open one. This has to be a stage, but I don’t like it. The only time I can force books on her is when she is trapped in the bathtub or high chair. She also HATES when you take something away or in general, look at her the wrong way. You guys, this one year old independence stuff is no joke.

Looking forward to: I’m looking forward to Easter this year with her. It’s going to be her first holiday where, while she may not “get it”, she will actually get to participate. I have some leftover plastics eggs from last year and might try hiding a few to see if she can find them. I have her Easter basket all ready to be assembled and am annoyingly excited about it.

We’re also working on scheduling a time to go down to Iowa to visit Chris’ parents. It will be different this time with a walking toddler verses a baby that can only crawl. So… we’ll see how this goes.