This month has been fairly quiet on the ‘new skills’ front for the stormbringer. Mostly we’re just working on our vocabulary and communication skills. We’ve passed the one year milestone months ago and all of the seasonal festivities (like Halloween parties) have already been experienced before. But we do have a few things to report.
Maeve at 16 months
Words. Maeve is getting so much better about vocalizing specific sounds for specific objects or activities.
Words she can sign:
all done, diaper (sort of), down, more, it hurts, dog, book, bath, brush teeth.
Words she says:
all done/empty = “uh oh”, down= “dow”, baby = “bee bee”, bear= “bee”, nuk/pacifier = “nunu”, more = “more”, car = “brrm”, “peekaboo” and “boo”, belly button = “bo’”, bath = “bah”, book= “buh'” & ball = “baw” (very subtle difference in sound, but context helps:). Sometimes she will say “mee’u” for milk.
She started ‘thinking’ when Lewis was deciding on what he could wear for Halloween (although it turned out he had to work and couldn’t stay at the party). She now puts her index finger to her cheek/chin/mouth and says “hmmm” 🙂 it’s adorable.
She definitely understands more words than she can say. She can find most of her toys that we’ll ask for, she can pick out specific books we ask for, she knows what we mean when we say toilet/ bathroom/ bed. She knows where her head is and her eyes and nose. She still gets confused about her ears. When I get her food ready, she’ll see the tray and hustle over to her chair 🙂 And after dinner she nearly always hops down from her chair and heads straight to the bathroom for bathtime 🙂
Exploring her body. The other week she found her belly button and loves to explore it. She has discovered the holes in her nose too and will stick her finger up it for no reason except that it’s there. She hasn’t started picking her nose and eating the rewards yet (whew) but she does have a cold so I’m trying to curtail this habit. For a couple of months now she has been enjoying exploring between her legs when she’s in the bath too. I’m not sure what to do about that. Mostly I let it slide, but I don’t want her fiddling with herself when I’m changing a dirty diaper.
If she sees me wiping up a spill she will mimic me. She will get a tissue (or her hand) and try to wipe up the spill. She occasionally grabs the brush and tries to sweep, but more often it goes toward the mouth (😦 blech).
Since Halloween she has had a cold. She had her 15month doctors visit just before Halloween and soon after that her sleep routine got all messed up. I’ve put it down to teething (tooth #7 finally came through and #8 will be here by thanksgiving). She had a week or so of waking in the night coughing and crying (some nights were better than others). The other night I ended up laying down with her on her bedroom floor until she seemed sleepy enough to move without waking her back up. On the 10th (about 2 weeks into having the cold) she randomly threw up all over herself on the train home from the ‘burbs. She’d been fine all day and hadn’t eaten anything different or anything but I think it was a coughing fit that resulted in puking everywhere. We were still 25minutes away from home and she screamed for most of the train ride. Then we popped her in the bath to clean her off and she cheered right up. No fussing, no fever, no disturbing poop. I kept a close eye on her temperature over the next couple of days (especially as Lewis then came down with a bad cold/mild fever too), but if anything her temp was really low. Like 92-94F. Hypothermia sets in at 90F, but she was happy as a clam and I just turned up the heat, wrapped her up all warm and cozy and snuggled with her lots.
We’ve started a new term of swimming and are seeing some familiar faces and lots of new faces. She is definitely one of the oldest in the class and one of the tallest. Lifting her out of the pool for some of the activities is hard! My arms aren’t long enough 😛 and when she’s swimming on her front her arms stretched out and her legs kicking there’s a high chance of her kicking someone behind us 🙂 I’m glad she enjoys swimming though. She might hate the bits where we lay on our back, but if she’s on her front she is scooping her hands and kicking her feet and trying to propel herself, like a champ 🙂
Elena turned one on the 8th and the following day had her birthday party which was lots of fun. They invited *way* more people than we invited to Maeve’s birthday, but they know far more families with small kids. There must have been about 10 kids ranging from 9mo- 8yrs running around!
I’ve made her a little Turkey tail belt to wear on Thanksgiving 🙂 It’s pretty adorable and I hope we get some good pics of her wearing it.
I’m really looking forward to Christmas this year! I have found a few stocking filler items for Maeve and am working on her tree gifts. I found a llama llama red pyjama stuffed toy at the thrift store the other day and just put it through the wash for her for Christmas. I think she’ll get a kick out of that as she loves those books.