Lydia: 14-15 Months

This little girl turned 15 months today! 

We went to the doctor for her well check and they said that things are looking great. She weighed exactly 20 pounds, was inches tall and had a head circumference. Such a big girl. (Actually she was in the 10th percentile for weight and 50th for hight - so more like a petite girl.) Still in size three diapers, but we had to move her up to size four shoes! Her little shoes just wouldn't fit on her feet anymore. She loves to clomp around in her new shoes though. (At first she had a hard time adjusting to walking in the new shoes - but now she's pro.) She wears 12-18 month clothes - and although the 12 month clothes fit her a little better - she's starting to fit nicely into some of the 18 month outfits.

We just love this girl so much. She makes us laugh and we can't imagine life without her.

Some things from the last month:

--She still doesn't say many words on a consistent basis. Dad is her main word. Sometimes Mom (nanan). Occasionally she has said "okay", "yeah", and for a while she was saying "amen" - but after a week she stopped doing that as well. However, she communicates through sign quite a bit: food, more, all done, dog, milk, water, and train/ball.

--She loves to stuff her cheeks full like a chipmunk and often asks for more food before she is done chewing. It is so funny. Seriously a food hoarder. And she likes her food in large chunks. If you cut the food into too small of pieces she wants nothing to do with it. Or sometimes she'll shove even more of the little pieces into her mouth as if to say "Fine, if you insist on cutting them smaller - I'll just eat more of them at the same time." So we find that we give her adult-sized pieces of melon, bread, etc... when she eats - because that is how she likes it.

--We've started having "Scripture, Song, Prayer" each night and I love it. She mostly walks around while we talk/sing - but she has started coming over to look at the pictures of the scripture we are talking about. My favorite is when she says "amen" at the end of our prayers.

--Lyd loves stuffed animals. It's so fun to watch her see one and light up. Then when she picks it up she pulls it close and buries her face into the fur. It's so darling.

--I'm still nursing her in the morning and at night, and before each of her two naps. I can see the transition away from nursing in our near future - but I haven't done anything to make that come faster. I am just going to enjoy the time I have with my little girl. She does drink 1-2 cups of milk a day in addition to nursing and to all the water that she drinks.

--I let her try her hand at painting the other day and she loved it!

--Lydia eats so much food. I'm always amazed at how big her little tummy is. Some of her favorite foods are: cottage cheese, yogurt, pasta, grapes, strawberries, rice, mashed potatoes, zucchini, tomatoes, melon, and cheese. Today I gave her a kiwi and she ate the whole thing before I had even finished getting the rest of her lunch ready. She loved it. She's super willing to try new foods and we are hoping that we can introduce her to enough foods right now that she will always be an adventurous eater. Along with that - we've really limited the amount of sweet things that we give her. She's only had ice cream a couple of times, cake maybe two or three times, and really no candy. Very little juice and no soda. We don't plan to never let her have these things - however, right now she doesn't really care and is just as happy with strawberries as she is with ice cream and so we've really tried to take advantage of the time we have to help tune her tastebuds. Then hopefully she will be able to enjoy sweets and candy while still enjoying all the other varieties of food that there are instead of wishing that she could have junk all the time.

--Lydia loves playing with her toy balls. If she sees them at the store (or really anywhere) she points and starts "ooh-ooh-ooh"-ing. She can't get enough.

--She loves to touch things. I'm very tactile and you can generally find me with my hand out to touch the different textures of things as I'm walking through the store. She definitely has the same tendencies. I was pushing her stroller through a clothing store and when I looked down she had both hands stretched out to touch the clothing racks on each side. Today I was letting her walk through the grocery store (I wanted to help get her legs moving so that they didn't get so sore from the shots) and she was in heaven! She was touching everything in sight. Running her hand along the boxes on the shelf, feeling the different textures, she loved it. Her desire to touch everything, plus her interest in the world around her is so sweet to watch.

--Lyd loves to explore. The other day at the library during story-time she just kept walking up to the windows on the side to see the things that were on them. No matter that there were 30 other kids between her and I. When she was done, she would walk right back to me - then a couple minutes later she was off again!

--We went on an awesome vacation to Houston, TX this month. While we were there we went down to the beach at Galveston in the Gulf of Mexico. It was awesome and it was hands-down Lydia's favorite part of the whole trip. She was fearless and would run into the waves as far as she could before we would pick her up and drag her back to the shallow water. She was enthralled.

--She loves to sit on any little ledge that she can find and loves to crawl/walk/balance on anything around.

--One of our hotels had a little safe and she loved playing with all of the buttons. 

--It is RARE for me to get a picture of her face - especially of her looking at me. This is what most of my pictures consist of - her running away from me. 

--She loves to climb up onto our chaise lounge and "relax". She will stretch out and kick her legs. She thinks it's so fun. (She also likes to climb all the way to the top - which scares me so much.) 

--Some other cute pictures from her adventures this month: 

We seriously love her so much!