16 Months

Another month has come and gone. I am finding that it is hard to be sad about Sophie leaving her babyhood behind though, as toddlerhood is so much fun. I love watching her explore, experience new things, and accomplish new feats. All these things make me so glad that I decided to start this blog. I don't want to forget a minute of all that she is doing!

Here are some things that have been going on this month:

• The most exciting thing to happen this month was Sophie's first steps. What a relief! (Though when the doctor found out that she isn't doing a ton of walking he mentioned a possible PT referral. He noted that she is strong enough to walk, but if she still isn't walking much by her next check-up, 18 months, then he would want PT to help her out. Let's hope that she is walking up a storm by 18 months so we don't have to go down that route!)
• Nine teeth...wow! Today I saw that there is a white spot on her lower gums, so a tenth tooth will be on the way soon.
• I took Sophie for her 15 month check-up two days ago (well, at least she was still 15 months). The took her measurements and I was so excited to find out that she is actually on a chart! She is in the 5th percentile for height! Her head and weight aren't on the charts at all (especially not her weight), but I was just so excited to hear she was actually on a chart. I was holding my breath when they weighed Sophie though, as I am always very anxious about her weight. 14lb 14oz. I was in disbelief. I said a word that rhymes with duck and made them try it again. 14lb 14oz. Seriously...she was 15lb 2oz last month at home! We even weighed her two weeks ago at home and she was 15lb 4oz. I know that different scales can be off from each other, but 6oz off?! No way! I felt so deflated. Sophie has a GI appointment next week, so hopefully their scales reflect a weight more closely to ours. Man, what a let down.
• Sophie is becoming such a little parrot. For example, when food is too hot for her we blow on it to cool it off. We have noticed that after we do this, Sophie will blow on the food, too, before putting it in her mouth. She also wipes her nose with tissues. She had a runny nose the other day, so I would wipe her nose for her. I told her to blow her nose into the tissue and mimicked it for her. I watched her later grab a tissue (I guess I didn't put it high enough out of her reach) and make a blowing sound with her nose, right into the tissue, and wipe her nose. While she is on the changing table Sophie will also pretend to pump hand sanitizer on her hands and rub them together (we use it every time we change her diaper). She will also mimic whatever we do with our tongues. So if we stick our tongues out at her, she will do the same back. If we blow raspberries, so will Sophie. This can be pretty entertaining. It is also pretty handy in the car when she is being fussy. If I start blowing raspberries or making a 'la la' sound she usually will join in.
• Sophie is also starting to parrot our words. I say that she parrots them because she will only say them once or twice, so I can't claim they are new words. Last week I put on The Mickey Mouse Clubhouse because Sophie enjoys it. In the intro, right after Mickey said his name, Sophie clearly said "Mickey." Yesterday I gave her something and told her to say 'thank you.' Instead she said 'welcome,' mimicking how we always say 'you're welcome.' Another day I asked her, "Where's dad?" She got a concerned look on her face, held up her hands and said, "Where dad?" Yesterday as I was putting clothes in the wash and Sophie partially closed the door on me. I asked, "Where is Sophie?" She responded with what really sounded like, "Here I am." Of course she wouldn't repeat it at all, so I can't be sure. Still, it excites me that her speech is starting to improve.
• Speaking of words, Sophie's new word this month is belly button. Of course it isn't crystal clear (it is more like 'bell butt'), but you can tell what she is saying. She has become fascinated by belly buttons. She will lift up her shirt, or ours, and poke and play with the belly button.
• Sophie has started making a deep throated "roar" noise. There was one day when she wouldn't stop making it. So I would ask her, "What does a lion say?" and she would then roar. Then I would ask, "What does a tiger say?" and she would roar again. Then I would ask, "What does a cat say?" and she would respond with, "cat, cat." Every time I would ask those questions she would respond the same. It was so cute. Sadly, she doesn't want to play this game anymore. Oh well.
• Sophie enjoyed her second Thanksgiving dinner. Last year she ate about 1/3 of a jar of baby food. This year she tried a bunch of different things!
• Sophie likes walking up the stairs like a big girl. If we hold her hands she will walk up the stairs, one foot per step. She gets so darn proud of herself. Of course her preferred way of getting up the stairs is crawling up them as quickly as possible. It takes her less than 15 seconds to get up the stairs now. Sophie also thinks it is pretty cute to give her Mom a heart attack by standing up on the stairs and then sitting down. (I thought for sure that she was going to fall down, but she is very careful about it. Of course my fear didn't make me put down my camera for long.)
• Sophie keeps working on those fine motor skills. She will take tissues out of the box (ugh) and then stuff them back in. She will play with the velcro straps on her shoes, pulling the strap on and off the other end of the velcro. She also will zip and unzip zippers. She gets very frustrated when a zipper won't go down. For Christmas, I bought her an activity board with different latches to play with. I have a feeling that she is going to love it.

• In the hallway upstairs are two pictures of Joe and I from our wedding. Sophie finally noticed them this month and it is now a morning ritual for us to stop at each picture so she can point us out (she calls both of us dad though, which I don't get. She knows who is mom and who is dad. Strange.) She will notice pictures in other rooms, too, and wants to look at them. Many days I have to pull pictures off the shelves in the living room so that she can look at them.
• At the end of last month we started to give Sophie Vitamin D milk with her formula and Pediasure. We tried this for 2 weeks before I pulled the plug on it. During those two weeks she was losing interest in the bottle and was spitting up. I can count on two hand how many times she has spit up in the past, and most of those were due to her overnight feeds with the feeding tube. Maybe we were mixing the milk too strong or maybe she just can't handle it. That is definitely something I am going to talk to GI about next week.
• Sophie still loves apples. If she sees them she will squirm, point and ask for it until you give her one. She only wants whole apples though. She doesn't want apple slices or halves, nor does she want one without the skin. She does very well with biting and chewing, so we haven't had any choking incidents. She does like to hold onto the skin of the apple in her mouth though and spit them out into my hand. Gross, but better than choking on it.
• Sophie went to the Aquarium for the first time this week. We had a play date there, which was fun. I love when she can be around other kids. Sophie enjoyed looking at the fish, but was pretty ticked off to be stuck in her stroller. So being the sucker that I am I carried her and pushed the stroller half of the time. Those are the times that I am happy that she is so light!
• Our little monkey loves climbing. Her current favorite thing to do is to climb around on the couch, getting up on the arm of the couch so that she can grab things off of the end table. She started doing this last month, but really has perfected her game this month. Nothing is safe on the end table!

  

• Sophie never liked having shoes or socks on her feet. She liked playing with them and putting them in her mouth, but never actually wearing them. However, after she took her first steps, she had a new interest in socks in shoes. She started keeping socks on her feet during the day (well, for the majority of the time at least). She also started bringing me shoes to put on her feet. When I would put them on...she kept them on! She would even walk around with them on instead of pulling up her legs in protest like before. She still will play with the shoes and take them off, but it is a vast improvement from what she was like even a few weeks ago.

She is playing with the straps but keeping the shoes on!

Something needs to be done about this hair. If she doesn't start keeping it in a hair tie or clip I am going to have to have Sara cut it. I'm not ready for that yet though....

I like to think she is signing 'I love you' here

Lunch with her Auntie Hoodrats

Trying to open presents before Christmas.