18 months!

Our baby girl is a YEAR and a HALF OLD!  Wow! 

At her 18 month appointment, Janie weighted 25 pounds and 12 ounces (75th percentile) and was 33 1/3 inches long (90th percentile).  She has met or exceeded all of the developmental milestones for the age range.  In fact, when we went into the exam room Janie instantly realized where we were and got upset.  She started asking to go home... in complete sentences.  When the physician that was seeing her (a colleague of Dr. Hung's who is on sabbatical), he was in awe of both her language and attempt at problem solving.  She often leaves us with the same feeling.  She watches Clara do something once and knows just what to do.  She attempts to say anything, is stringing together lots of words and she is singing (almost) complete songs.  This transitional age is so amazing because they really do seem to be learning something new every hour! 

Favorite songs that she can sing on her own: Rock-a-Bye Baby, I Love You and Happy Birthday
Favorite Books: Little Pookie, Dear Zoo, flap books, Snuggle Puppy, Goodnight Moon, How Kind, Daddy Kisses

For this round of photos, Janie was not all that interested in sitting still.  She also was persistent in trying to take off her Picky Sticky sticker, thus there are more action shots then in past months.  This little gal is on the go!  She continues to be far more active than Clara was at this age.  On the bright side, we have seen leaps and bounds of progress over the past weeks in her attention span.  She will look at books for 10 to 15 minutes and even sit down a watch a television program with Clara in the mornings.  We have been good about limiting the TV time to an hour or less a day but with the crummy weather the past month, they have fairly routinely had that hour. 

Every day we get to see more of her personality emerge.  She is very playful and loves being silly with Mom & Dad.  She doesn't do as well with being told "No" and is experimenting with throwing some royal tantrums.  The catch is we punish her with a Time Out, only somehow the punishment part is still lost on her.  When we say the words, she repeats them and then immediately marches over, positions her chair and sits down with a grin.  If big sister does them, they must be the thing to do right!?!  Silly bug!

Over the past month Janie has been getting her molars in and then has had a cold so sickness and teething continue to spoil our attempts at getting quality rest.  She takes a nap pretty great now, and goes down well around 7:00/7:30 but she somehow KNOWS right when Mommy has just drifted off to sleep, whether it is 9:30 or 1:00 am, and chooses that time to wake up and want to be rocked.  We try to be firm and make some progress and then something happens to our schedule (vacation, sickness, etc.) and messes it up.  After our family Disneyland trip, we are hoping to settle into a permanent routine. 

Lately Janie struggles a bit with any independent play.  She typically likes to play right along side Clara with the same toys she is playing with.  As you can imagine, this causes a little drama in our household.  The next best thing would be playing while perched on Mommy or Daddy's leg/lap.  Unfortunately for our Little Bug, things sometimes have to get done around the house and Mommy has to walk away (obviously this doesn't happen too often because our house is really in need of a good cleaning/organizing).  When she notices someone isn't right there with her, the whining starts and only seems to escalate until Mommy returns.  Sometimes the same thing happens when she is in her high chair.  Mommy leaves her with a tray of snacks and runs upstairs to change the laundry only to return to a lovely splatter art display all over the kitchen floor!

Just like Clara, Janie enjoys play food, especially our new set of wooden donuts.  We are served lots of meals by both girls these days and have amassed quite a collection of play food.  Janie continues to be a great little mother to her babies.  We laugh as she flings them into the dolly bed or stroller by their arm (or head), feeds them their milk, and loves them very firmly, but it is neat to see just how nurturing of a spirit she has. 

We love you, Janie Caroline.  The past year and a half have been an adventure, but we know it has been just the right adventure for Mommy, Daddy & Big Sister, Clara!