My Sixteen Month Old

I realized that my post "My 15 month old" got cut off somewhere and I don't remember exactly what was missing. I do know that it originally included something about how the post was extremely late (considering that CC was more than 15 and a half months old when I posted it), and that some of the info. was out of date. So, hopefully this will clear things up a bit.

Oh, and one more thing missing from that post was about how sick Christina has been lately. She had that pesky ear infection which we got antibiotics for immediately, but unfortunately a week later we had to take her back to the doctor because she had a fever of 103.5. Turns out the antibiotics never worked and on top of the ear infection she also ended up with RSV and Pneumonia!

She officially has been diagnosed with Reactive Airways Disease (the kid version of Asthma) and we had to return to the 'ol inhaler again. My poor baby even had to go to the hospital and get tortured. Three attempts at an IV finally landed her with fluids, medicine, and steroids; she also had two chest xrays; had blood taken; and a bunch of other terribly annoying things for a baby to deal with. Thank goodness she is all better now though.

So yeah, like I was saying . . . . My sixteen month old:

- likes to color. She is getting very good at it too. She knows how to make lots of marks on the paper, which I hear is an important milestone. We are still working on keeping the crayons out of her mouth, but I hear that is a battle we will likely be fighting for a long time. It seems that whenever I tell her not to put something in her mouth, she gets very excited and immediately takes whatever she has in her hand and shoves it into her mouth. She thinks it is just the funniest game.

- is starting to prefer eating what I eat over anything else offered to her. She shares my bagel with me every morning and whenever I am eating pasta, she always wants some of that too. She is still crazy about fruit though, whether I eat it or not.

- is extremely affectionate lately. She loves to give hugs, especially to Amstel (one of our dogs). Every time she gives a hug to anyone or anything (even a stuffed animal), everyone in the room says "aaawww" because really it is just so darn cute. I'm sure all of the attention is why she continues to do it. I hope she never stops with that one. I love her warm and sweet hugs.

- is very strong. I don't think I've ever mentioned it here before, but she has always been very strong. I call her my little hulk baby. She likes to pick up heavy things and just carry them around. She does this with a small table we have in our living room, her plastic chairs, her lunch bag, her diaper bag, etc. At the grocery store she will sit in the front of the cart and pull things out of the inside of the cart. She can even lift a gallon of milk. When she was in the hospital and the nurses had to hold her down to take her blood and give her the IV, it took four of us to hold her down! I was on one side with my Dad and Nik, while the two nurses were on the other side (one of which was taking the blood or putting in the IV -not holding CC down). Even the nurse was surprised at her strength and commented on it.

- doesn't really let anyone read to her, but loves to flip through her books. She is very independent that way and in many other ways as well.

- prefers to feed herself. It is still a little messy, but she is getting really good at it. In fact she must understand the process extremely well considering she feeds her baby doll now.

- squeals with joy whenever she sees someone she loves, like when Daddy comes home from work or Grandma comes for a visit. It is the most adorable thing. She starts squealing and bouncing around all over the place. She just gets so happy and really knows how to show it.

- got three toy phones for Christmas and absolutely loves each of them.

- continues to go to sleep every night without any crying or fighting whatsoever. I am so lucky. All I have to do is tell her night-night and let her say good night to whomever is home (including the dogs), I hug and kiss her and tell her I love her, then I put her in her crib and cover her with a blanket. She goes right to sleep after that, every night. Plus, she sleeps for 12 hours at least. Her naps are not always as easy, but I will take what I can get.

- still only has six teeth (four on top, two on the bottom). I feel like she is going to be in kindergarten before she has a mouth full of teeth. But that is ok with me.

- has eyes that change colors each day. It is very weird and I'm curious to see if this will continue. One day her eyes are blue, the next they are hazel and still the next day they could be brown. Some days she has a ring of blue around the outside, but the inside is either hazel or brown. It is anybody's guess what color her eyes will be on a given day. Nik thinks it is her genes fighting with each other to see who will win, lol. I don't know, but it would be pretty interesting if her eyes continue to change day in and day out.

- is going to be moving to the pre-toddler room at daycare soon, since she is walking now. I think this is going to be a good move for her. She loves that room and loves the teachers. There is more space and instead of baby toys she has big kid toys she can play with. She usually spends part of her days there anyway, so for her it will be an easy transition. For me it will be a little harder because I LOVE a couple of the teachers in the infant room. I know I will get comfortable with the pre-toddler teachers too though, it will just take some time.

Well, I think that is all I have for now. Happy Sixteen Month Old Birthday Christina!! I can't believe how big you are getting! Muah!