18 Months Old!

The last year and a half has flown by. And our baby......


is turning into a little girl.


Our doctor appointment is tomorrow, so stayed tuned for some stats. But we're comfortably in 18 month wear, so I think we're where we should be.

So some things about Grace these days:

1. Eating/drinking - Not sure how much milk we intake daily. Some days she sucks down almost two whole glasses for breakfast, and some days she has what seems like drops (today was one of those days). Hard to tell about lunch consumption, because she's mostly at school, but dinner is usually most of her glass. But I try not to worry about it too much because she gets her dairy from other sources. We have yogurt almost every morning during the week. I got fed up with my options in the store and have been making my own. It's just plain, but we usually add some apple sauce to it for her. She's also a cheese lover. Grace does pretty good with most every food we've let her try - she eats what we eat, so it's a pretty broad spectrum of options. The only thing that she seems to regularly NOT eat is her fruit at school. And I think we experience the normal toddler picky eating behavior. Some days she eats a ton, some days hardly anything. Some days things she loves just don't appeal to her. Some days she just can't get enough.

2. Continues to sleep so well. With her bunnies. We had one night recently where she was up off and on all night, but we really couldn't attribute it to anything. But those nights (and the next day) are rough on all of us since we are so used to getting a decent nights sleep.

3. Lots of words. She can say her name when you ask her to "say Grace". It sounds like Geese, though. I think still has the same number of signs as last month: more, please, thank you, all done, milk, and the makings of i love you. We try to remember to say a blessing before dinner, and she puts her hands together like she's praying, and watches us, and when we say Amen, she says MEN, with such a proud look on her face. Also knows that her dogs name is Beau.

4. Some hitting and biting going on. Mommy seems to be taking the brunt of the beatings. Trying to reinforce that we touch gently and we don't hit or bite. Lots of redirection going on. Lots of hugs and kisses to reinforce the point. And thankfully, they say she's a big hugger and kisser at school.

5. Attitude.

If this picture doesn't say attitude...... wooo.....

I don't think we've experienced a real temper tantrum yet. But we've had some serious melt downs. Like last night. We were putting the finishing touches on dinner, and I had walked in the other room with Grace, and she just melted down. Hysterical. Hit me, so I put her in a chair to maybe attempt a "time out". Ha. She nearly catapulted herself out of the chair on her head in hysterics. So I tried to sit her on the floor, and she just stood up and launched herself onto me. I picked her up, she screamed more. I put her down, she screamed louder. It was a no win. And if I tried to walk away from her, she was hanging onto my legs screaming/crying. In the end, I think/hope/pray that she was really just so very hungry. We went in the kitchen, had a noodle out of the pot, and it was a constant string of 'more more more'. And when we sat down at the table she gobbled almost every last bite of food off her plate and was pleasantly delightful for the rest of the evening. What we have experienced thus far can be attributed to being hungry or tired, I think.

6. Grace has no fear in or around water. Had a wonderful time at the beach, loved the sprayground, and is enjoying weekly trips to the pool.

And this just in..... I will not even honor it with it's own post because I know it was a fluke. I know it will be a long time before it happens again. I know she's not ready. But tonight, while I was running Grace's bath, I put her on the potty. And she PEE PEE in the POTTY! WOOT WOOT!! We have been having accidents before and after bath time, and every once in a while I'll sit her on it and talk to her about it. But tonight. Tonight. She DID IT!!!!