So, my little Maddi is 14 months old today. Lately, I look at her and cannot believe how big she is. I try to remember back to when she was a baby and I was holding her all the time. She is turning more and more into a "little girl" instead of being a "baby". I am really loving this stage right now though! She is starting to talk, but even without words we are able to communicate with each other more than I would have ever thought at this age. She is such a sweet baby! I just stare at her sometimes and can't believe how much I love her and how much I love being a mom! As much as I want her to stay little forever, I also can't wait to see what she will be like in all the other stages of her life yet to come. Here are a few things she is doing now:
*As I said she is starting to say a few more words. In addition to saying "mama" and "dada" (which she says A LOT now) she also says "duck", "cat", "meow", "woof, woof", "quack, quack", and I think she has said "ball" a few times, too. She says "uh oh!" ALL the time! There are also many times we say things that she clearly is repeating back to us. It may not sound exactly right, but the tone and general sound of the words are there. Like when we tell her "Love you!" she tries to say it back. So cute! And she has been pointing at things for a few months now. That is still her main way of getting what she wants.
*She is also getting really good at her sign language that they are teaching her at school. I think she knows way more than we do even. A few times she will be making a sign trying to tell us something and we have no clue what it is! But here are the few we know and can recognize: please, thank you, more, baby, monkey, I love you, and cat. On Friday, her teacher wrote on her daily report sheet that "Maddison is very intelligent. She really pays attention." Now, they probably wrote it on all the other kids too, but I'm choosing to believe that my child is exceptionally bright! ; )
*She's getting good at identifying her body parts. She knows her tummy, nose, and eyes. We are working on mouth and ears.
*She waves "hi" and "bye", blows kisses, loves to give high fives, gives really good hugs around the neck and big kisses on the lips! Sometimes they are open mouthed and sometimes you get some tongue but I still love them!
*She is learning that she can make different facial expressions. More on that later.
*She has been walking now for about 3 months. She almost runs to me now when I pick her up from school! I love that feeling when she is that happy to see me! She also is starting to run from us. If she has something we don't want her to have or if we want to wipe her nose or face, she takes off. It's exasperating, but cute at the same time!
*Some things she loves right now are babies, being outside, petting Pato (our dog) and Zoey (our cat). She loves being chased, playing hide-n-seek, being tickled, listening to music, dancing, and wearing shoes. She also loves bath time! Although with all her hair, she does not like having the tangles combed out!
*She LOVES her books! Not only does she love to be read to before nap time and bed time, but she will bring you a book to read many times during the day. Her favorites are Blue Hat, Green Hat; Goodnight Moon; Hop; Pat-a-Cake (which isn't really a story book, it's a collection of nursery rhymes like pat-a-cake, this little piggy, etc. Since it's not really a story book it's not our favorite, but boy does she love it! We groan every time she brings it to us!).
*She currently has 8 teeth showing and we think she is working on her molars.
*She still sleeps pretty good. She usually takes about a 2-3 hour nap around lunch and sometimes an evening cat nap. However, she's been skipping the cat nap lately. Then she sleeps about 10-11 hours at night. She usually only wakes up when she's sick or teething. But she generally goes down in her crib easily. Even if she's awake when we put her down, she will go off to sleep on her own. That sure does make bedtime nice! I hope she keeps that up! She likes to sleep with her monkey, Bob. And she always pulls her socks off and wakes up with cold feet!
*Her favorite food right now is mac 'n cheese. She also likes chicken, green beans, Gerber cereal and fruit bars, and COOKIES. We only give her 1 or 2 for snacks (and they are the Gerber ones which have a few more good things in them than just sugar). But, man, does her face light up when she hears the word cookie! It's so cute!
*As I mentioned in an earlier post, she is completely done with her pacifier. She is also now completely on whole milk. No more formula! Yay! Now we are working on weaning off the bottle. My pediatrician really stresses getting them off the bottle by 12 months. But I am a softy and didn't want to just go cold turkey. So we have been doing it slowly. My goal is to have it done by 15 months. When she moved up to the Young Tots class, they didn't allow bottles so that cut her daily bottles by one. So, we were down to three a day: one in the morning, one in the afternoon after school, and one at night. I waited until we got through the holidays to really start. Last week, we cut the afternoon bottle. We had one fussy day, but other than that she did well. So this week we are cutting out the morning bottle. I started today and she did great! So, if this week goes well, we will work on the dreaded task of cutting out the night time bottle next week. Yikes! I think that one will be the hardest and we will probably go cold turkey with it. Hopefully, though, in about 2 weeks time we will be bottle free! I detest bottle washing!
Here are some of her many facial expressions!
Maddi's first Valentine's Day!
