18 Months

I had good intentions to post this a few weeks ago, but never sat down and put it on paper. 

Our sweet girl is now 18 month!!!  This has to be one of my favorite stages and not so favorite stages.  Sage posted earlier this week/last week about how no one bothers to tell you that the “terrible 2s” start at 18-20 months and that is the truth!  Man, I honestly can say I do not know how Sage does it with 3 acting this way at the same time.  I can barely handle my one.  I’ll talk more about that later, but for now the good!

Zoey weighed in at 25lbs 15oz and is 33 inches tall at her 18 month appointment on June 19th (which just happened to be the day she turned 18 months).  She is in the 90% for height and 50% for weight.  She has been constant on this since birth.

She will eat just about anything you give her; as long as she is hungry.  She does have her favorites; green beans, yogurt, chicken, tortilla chips (lime flavor is the best), and cheese.  I am learning not to push the eating when we do; she will eat when she is hungry and will not starve herself.  She was introduced to Nutella and LOVES it.  She kept coming back to me for more. 

She drinks about 16oz or more of milk a day.  We finally bit the bullet and got rid of her last bottle last week.  I forgot one when we went to my parents house Wednesday night and she wouldn’t take the one my Mom had so we didn’t give her one when we got back.  I was REALLY scared of how this would go because she LOVED that bottle, but it hasn’t phased her at all. I think the key was we do not bring her downstairs after bath and getting ready for bed like we did before.  Thankfully she has started to drink more at dinner and after dinner so I don’t feel like she is not getting enough milk.  This was the main reason I was still giving her this one; it took her some time to drink all her milk during the day out the sippy cup.  Speaking of cups, she now loves her new straw cups.  I realized she could drink out of straw so decided to get her a couple of straw cups once we got off the bottle and she loves them. It was comically watching her learn to hold it though.  All her other cups have handles and this one doesn’t.  At first she just sat it on the table and leaned over to drink.  Silly girl. 

We are loving the fact she will now come and get us (on most occasions) and lead/show us what she wants.  Sometimes she will even say “help” when she needs it.  Very cute.  While on other occasions she will just scream until we figure out what she wants and gives it to her.  This is something we are trying to work on and get her to either show us all the time or tell us what she wants.  The high pitch screaming is not fun all the time.  I am amazed every day at all the words she knows and how to use them. Things I had no idea she knew what they were or didn’t realize we said around her she knows.  I can’t wait till she starts forming more sentences.  One of my favorite words she says is “Rella” for Cinderella”.  We had no idea she knew who she was, until the 4th when she was playing with my niece’s figurines and said it.   (She does have the Little People Princesses, but we didn’t realize she actually knew who was who.)

She knows most of her letters, numbers, colors, and shapes. If you write or show her a number/letter she will tell you what it is.  She can almost count to 10 when prompted.  She knows how to count in order of 8, 9, 10, 11, 12 really well.  Still gets a tad confused when she starts at 1.  I’m working on getting her to learn to spell her name; which she knows but can’t really say.  (Oops, didn’t really think about that when deciding on her name how hard it would be for her to say.)  She will point out colors, unless you are trying to get her to preform and then forget it.  She has gotten good at sorting the shapes and putting them in the ball in her shape sorter.  Which I’m secretly glad she can do this herself now instead of sitting there screaming for one of us to find them so she can put them in. 

She knows almost all the animals and what sound they make.  One of our games we play with her trying to get her to either stop fighting when changing her or when she tries to get out of the car seat is to ask her what each sound an animal makes.

I think she is going to be our little fish.  She loves the water!  I’m very thankful we have awesome neighbors who never use their pool and have given us an open invitation to come swim anytime.  Brian and her are doing the parent/child swim classes next week.  He is super excited about this. 

 

Now the not so fun stuff.  Sigh.  The poor child had no chance of not having a temper with both parents who does.  Hey, I can admit it as a child I was bad.  I don’t mind spanking, but I don’t think it really works on her.  I’m trying to come up with other ideas, but nothing so far really works on her.  She won’t sit still for timeout, taking things from her doesn’t bother her when she is pitching her fits. Anyone have any ideas for tips on how to discipline a toddler who is not easily distracted?  I have my days where the screaming for something and not giving it to her doesn’t bother me, but other days I just want to give it to her to stop the screaming.  I have tried to talk to her, but she’s not there yet about understanding how if you do this you can have what you want.  Example, last night at dinner she saw I was eating a salad and knew I had the little tortilla strips in it (The girl DOES NOT FORGET ANYTHING; I gave her some from last week when we had salad and she knew.) and wanted some.  I told her if she would eat more of her dinner she could have some…yeah that didn’t go over well.  She started screaming and throwing her food after we tried to get her to eat it.  I was fine with letting her scream, but B was not.  He caved in to her; against my wishes.  I know I will end up having to be the “bad cop”. 

Overall this stage is fun!  It’s nice having her communicate more and be more interactive.  She is growing like a weed and learning new things ever day!