17 months
My little girl is getting so grown up! 17 months already, it is hard to believe. We have come to the point where we can actually communicate and almost have conversations. She will ask for specific things to eat, or for milk or water to drink. She repeats the names of everything. She will go get her hat and jacket when we get ready to leave somewhere - she can put her hat on all by herself (and take it off) and can almost do the same with her jacket. She walks to the door, goes down the steps, and can almost climb into the car and into her carseat by herself.
She has really started to love coloring. She no longer thinks of crayons as something to eat. I taped a bunch of paper down on her little table, and she will sit for a long time (well, a long time for a toddler - usually 15-30 min) and amuse herself and just scribble and experiment with all the different colors of crayons. She only occasionally draws on the wall - thank goodness for washable crayons.
We finally decorated our house for the holidays. We got our tree after Thanksgiving - but then all 3 of us struggled fighting a cold and passing it back and forth for almost 2 weeks - so nothing really got done until just recently. We tried to include Rosie in decorating the tree - she was more interested in taking things off - then putting them on though.
She has been very good and hasn’t really bothered the tree too much. I secured it to the wall just in case she decided to try to climb it or pull it down or something. She has taken off a few ornaments - just a couple on the bottom few branches - not really a big deal. I think she likes the way it looks though - she keeps pointing at the tree and saying “tee” and “pitty”.
She is really becoming a good eater. Still sticks to her standard favorites - but she also loves oatmeal “o-me” and soup “oop” and she is getting pretty good at using a spoon without turning it over and dumping everything all over. I think she might be ambidextrous - she alternates between using her right and left hands when eating and when coloring. She also has been really into feeding her dolls and toys lately - especially Elmo. All her Elmo dolls have cracker crumbs and dried mashed banana all around their mouths. Not only has Rosie been sharing her food with her dolls, she has also been sharing her “nursie” with her dolls. She will take a turn and then she will put Elmo or one of her other dolls to my breast and say “nursie” - she thinks she is so clever. She also has started nursing her dolls herself - putting them up to her chest or belly and saying “nursie” and also sometimes “num, num, num”. Speaking of nursing, Rosie isn’t showing any signs of weaning herself anytime soon. If anything, she seems to have increased her nursing frequency over the last month. Some days she nurses every 1/2 hour to an hour. It is making me feel very rudown and I am going to try to see if I can get her to up her cow’s milk intake - and maybe she will want to nurse less as a result and it will give me a little bit of a (much needed) break. I don’t have the heart to wean her completely yet, as nursing is obviously very important to her and something she loves - it is also a great tool for me to use to comfort her, calm her, and get her to sleep.
Her absolute favorite thing to do is jump on her mini trampoline in our house. I got it on craig’s list from a family whose kids had outgrown it. It has a handle so she can hold on and jump - and she thinks it is the funnest thing to do. She cracks herself up and jumps up and down and she puts her toys on there and makes them bounce when she jumps. It is good exercise too - she tires herself out pretty quickly.
I’ll have more photos and updates after all the holiday celebrations… We are off to Florida for a week and then we will be home for a quiet family Christmas with just the 3 of us…
Happy Hanukkah and Merry Christmas to Everyone!
