With all of the holiday activities our family has been busy with, I have let this blog slide a little. Up until tonight, the most recent post was Janie's 14 month photos - Ooops! The good side is that I have been taking photos so there are lots to choose from for future posts. Instead of continuing in chronological order, I am going to jump ahead a few post and write about Janie at 15 months, so I don't forget/distort anything about her development.
At her 15 month check up, Janie weights 24 pounds, 6 ounces (75-90th percentile) and is 32 inches long (90-95th percentile)
This month has been completely amazing with how much our little sweetie pie has changed! As predicted, she is walking most of the time, and getting fast! Some days I totally underestimate how long it takes for her to walk down the hall from her room behind me and before I know it, she is out in the front room climbing on something she shouldn't or half way up the stairs! She occasionally has a little fall, but always lands on her bottom and bounces back up with a smile. She loves to be where the rest of us are, so walking faster allows her to follow us around the house. We are liking not having to carry her everywhere!
Janie usually likes to hold on to a toy or some random household item she is playing with as she toddles around. She has shown a particular liking to a travel size bottle of Downy Wrinkle Release spray that I kept in the bottom drawer in the master bathroom. At times she likes to take the little cap on and off and pretend to spray her hair, but for the most part it just must be a comfortable size to hold. She is pretty good with not trying to put it in her mouth or I wouldn't allow her to play with it at all.
One area of change for Janie that is a lot of fun this past month is her play. She seems to be transitioning from the exploitative stage into doing more mimicking. She likes to copy what Clara is doing and we have noticed just how much she pays attention to our actions. She loves to play with play food and Clara's dolls. One day Clara & I were doing her hair in the bathroom and thought Janie was playing with the kitchen in Clara's room. I was floored to walk in and realize she had taken all (about 8 of them) of the wooden dolls out of their bin, placed them on Clara's bed, climbed up the little step stool and was sitting on Clara's bed playing with the dolls just the way Clara does (to keep them away from Janie).
Janie continues to take off with her speech, using lots of phrases. It seems like her willingness to ask for things she wants really reduces the fits and fussiness during the day and leads to a much happier girl and parents! At night, she still tends to verbalize less and fuss more, but that is to be expected. Some surprising things she is saying this month include, knowing the difference between some of the Disney princesses, especially "Ai-wee-el" who is Clara's current favorite, attempting to name colors (she likes to touch the stripes on her wall and say the color, and while she is getting better, she isn't exactly accurate with anything besides "yeh-yow"), she names her body parts and pieces of clothing, most of the food she likes to eat (recognizing "egg" and "meat" all by herself). Sometimes she will even try and start singing a song she wants to sing together. Right now her favorites are Happy Birthday and the playgroup welcome song.
When Janie's initial attempts at communications are not effective, she tends to continue to repeat it, OVER and OVER, whether we understands what she is staying or even if we repeat what she tells us and have to tell her no. Then she starts getting louder and more threatening. Recently, she decided that she wanted an M&M from the candy jar in the dining room. She stood below the jar pointing "That! Want That! Cawn-dee!" When I told her no, she kept repeating, louder and louder. Fed up with my unwillingness to fork over the M&M, she attempts to climb the buffet and get it herself. Boy, she was not happy being carried into the other room without "Cawn-dee"!!
Our little sweetie has started to tell us "happy" when she seems to feel happy. It is often unprompted and is just the best feeling in the world. Grandma Jan picked her up and kissed her the other day and Janie told her "Happy!" So glad Grandma could share is some of the joy she is sharing with us these days!
When she is feeling well, Janie's appetite really has picked up! It felt like most of what we put on her tray last month ended up on the floor, where now there is the occasional piece, but nothing like before. She has days were she seems like a bottomless pit and eats twice as much as Clara. She also is a good drinker and is always asking for more water in her cup.
While we were starting to make some progress with sleep last month, Janie caught a nasty cold that really lingered. One thing that we have learned about sick Janie is that she wants to be held constantly and does not sleep well at all. Mommy (even Daddy needed to help out) was doing lots of rocking, slightly shaking the car seat, or rolling the stroller back in forth in a dark, humid room only to get 45 minutes of sleep out of the little gal. We were not a happy household for a while there!!! While the cold eventually got better and lead to longer stretches of sleep, Clara then got the cold and both girls ended up with ear infections right before Christmas.
Now that she is feeling better, Janie's happy and playful self is continuing to shine through! She can be the a really tough kid when she is sick, but it is all worth when she is feeling well. She is happy, playful and so interested in learning and interacting.
