15 months

It's been a few months since I've done a "monthly" status update on Alli to let everyone know what she's up to. She's been keeping us busy, all the time, to say the least!! It's getting crazy to think that when she's around 18 months old, she'll have a younger sibling!! And every time she turns another month older, it's another month closer to her being a big sister. People keep asking how she is adjusting to it or if we've been telling her about it. We have and do talk a lot about the new baby coming, but she's really too young to understand.

She is so curious, inquisitive, and learning at such an incredible rate. She recently moved up to the toddler class at daycare, and I was in shock when I went to pick her up on Wednesday. They sleep on cots in this class instead of cribs, and they just look like such little grown ups! I went in on Wednesday, and she was the only one left still sleeping. There she was, on her little cot, in the middle of the room, lights on, with the other toddlers in the class running around, eating their snacks at the table, and chattering away. Our little snoozer slept right through it all.

She is getting more and more of a vocabulary too, although a lot of it is hard to understand and her own "babble language." But she's so firm when she does some of the babble talking, it's obvious she has some point she's trying to get across to us. When I bring her home from daycare each day, she says "nana, nana, nana!!!" as we walk in... and as we open the door, she points and leans toward the counter where the bananas are. Her old favorite used to be clementines, which she called "ball"... the girl loves her fruit. She says "ball" and throws her ball around the room, "Pooo" for her Pooh bear, "quack", "woof woof", "kawww" (for when a bird flies by), "nah", "yah", "tank tu", "uh oh", "up", "down", "done", "shoes", just to name a few that we can definitely differentiate from the random babbling.

Alli is great at a lot of things... but one she's definitely great at is throwing temper tantrums already. Already! I'm hoping this is just the terrible two's making their appearance early... but who knows, we may just be in for it with her. I always said, right when she was born and we found out she was a girl, I knew it was payback for how awful I was to my mom as a teenager. And here she is.... my payback! Ha! She gets so frustrated sometimes and just wants what she wants, it's impossible to reason with a 15 month old. Like Dad-E had mentioned in an earlier post, she loves watching Elmo videos on our phones. If she sees either of us even touching our phone, she runs up to us and quacks and jumps in our lap. She'll quack, and quack and quack until we play a video. We have been trying to cut back on it, so most times, we just turn our phones off and throw/hide them somewhere. She has a serious meltdown when this happens. Like, throw herself on the floor, crazy head, face down in the pillow/stuffed animal, and just cries. Really? You're going to be okay. I guess if that's the worst thing in her life these days, she doesn't really have it too bad. It's still quite dramatic... oh boy.

The Stats:
Weight: We'll know for sure after her 15 month check up this Monday, but, I'm going to guess about 23 lbs
Length: Again, we'll know for sure Monday, but, if I had to guess, 32 inches?
Head: Anxious to find out...
Diaper Size: 4's
Clothing Size: 12-18 months
Shoe Size: 4's - 5's depending on the brand
Food: All done with bottles! We're all sippy cups now, one with dad in the mornings when she wakes up, and she shares his oatmeal or cereal, then an AM snack/juice at daycare, lunch with milk, afternoon snack/water at daycare, banana when she gets home with me, dinner/milk, then bath and bed. She LOVES and only wants to self feed... and is doing really great with feeding herself with the fork and spoon.
Naps: One 2 hour nap, 12-2ish
Sleep: Bed by 6:45-7ish, up by 6ish
Teeth: Thirteen! Almost 14, the top right cuspid is right there too...
Play: Playing outside (she begs to go out, stands by any of our 3 doors to the outside and reaches for the doorknob), riding in her cozy coupe with Dad-E pushing her around, playing in her kitchen, sliding down the slide, rearranging everything, she's quite the little organizer, showing us where her belly, head, nose and feet are, lots of dancing, and lots of giggling... she's so ticklish these days!
New buddies: No one new, just got to see her BFF Anneliese recently, which was great!

I love watching her grow and learn new things each day... I'm constantly amazed by this little person we created, we couldn't love her more.