We have been up to lots of fun recently with 2 different sets of house guests and getting settled in to our new home. But all of that will have to wait because this little beauty is now 18 months old!
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| Too bad she doesn't like to sit still... it is so hard to get any non-blurry picture these days |
She did great today at the doctor and for the first time ever willingly let the nurse measure her head and let the doctor look at her ears and hear her heartbeat. That was a sigh of relief for mom! She also insisted on showing off and performing a few of her songs for the doctor. It is always comforting to hear the doctor confirm she is doing well and is "really smart!" The only meltdown was when we were waiting for the nurse to come and give the shots. Brooke really, REALLY, wanted to go back to the waiting room as see the fish that were painted on the wall. She stood at the door with big puppy dog eyes and started to tear up when I said we had to wait. She also learned the word "poke" today after getting her shots and proceeded to tell me about it again, and again, and again, on the way home.
Height: 32.5 inches (75%tile)
Weight: 29 lbs (95%tile)
Head: 19.25 inches (95%tile)
Brooke is such a character and brings so much joy into our lives. These last few months with her have been a blast! She is still changing so much everyday but here are a few things that 18 month old Brooke enjoys. This is a long post, mostly for family history so feel free to just browse the pretty pictures from our little mini photo shoot today!
Favorites list:
Color: Purple. Brooke can say "purple" and likes to point out every single purple things wherever we go.
Drink: Milk! She is a milk addict, just like she was a nursing addict. She would drink milk all day everyday if we let her, but we limit it to just at mealtimes when she is sitting at the table. Luckily she happily chugs the water the rest of the day.
Food: anything! this girl loves her food still. She will go thru phases where she eats lots of one item then it changes. Recent obsessions have included blueberries, cheese sticks, peas, eggs, pears and peanut butter sandwiches.
At home activity: I think it is a tie between dancing/signing to her music and doing her puzzles
Outside activity: a tie between painting with water and "wiiiiing!" (swinging at the park)
Place to go: The library for story time. Singing, dancing, books and other kids to play with? Brooke is in heaven!
Animal: She really loves all animals and has a word/sound for almost all of them but the one she says the most recently is "mingo" aka the flamingo.
Song: She regularly requests (by doing part of the hand motions) itsy bitsy spider, if you are happy and you know it, shake my sillies out, the more we sing together, and head shoulder knees and toes.
Book: Chicka Chicka Boom Boom aka "Boom boom" Although she also really likes an old "For the Strength of the Youth" pamphlet that she found lying around. Seriously, she will sit at look at all the people/temples/pictures of Jesus in that book for a LONG time.
Friend: Duke. A 3 year old in our play group who isn't nearly as fond of little Brooke as she is of him. She gets excited for play group every week saying "Duu Duu Duu!!!" and always says his name first if I tell her we are going to see friends.
Brooke is a very social child. She loves to get attention from just about everyone and enjoys playing with other kids. I will often see her giving a little kid a toy (by shoving it not-so-gently into their hands) or leaning down to give them a hug. She even stopped the other day when she saw a little girl crying and gave her a hug. It only made the little girl even more upset, but poor Brooke didn't understand that and tried to give another. I foresee lots of talks on boundaries in our future.
Brooke also loves to learn. I am not the type of mom to sit down and "teach" her. We don't do flashcards or anything like that, but if she is interested in something she is like a little sponge. At first it was animals but now that she has those all down she is interested in colors. One day I just casually mentioned the colors of the puff balls she was playing with. She immediately stopped what she was doing and quizzed me by pointing to all the different colors until she felt like she had it figured out. Ever since then she has been super curious about any and all colors. I mentioned before that she points out purple everywhere but she can also find any colored object when asked. She has also shown some interest in counting recently. And will point at the objects while we count "one, two, three" and seems to really understand the concept. Her favorite things to count are her/my fingers. The other day she proudly declared "TWO!" when she had two sippy cups at breakfast. (the night before we counted 3 different cups on the table). Hopefully this passion for learning sticks around!
Brooke also loves to copy. Whether it is the librarian doing the actions to the songs, dad using the stud finder on the wall, or the doctor hitting her knee with the mallet. Brooke is intently following right along or mimics the action as soon as she can get a hold of the object. It is so fun watching her figure out how things work!
Silly girl thinks all pictures of males are "dada" and all pictures of females are "mama". With the few exceptions of older individuals who get called papa and grandma. She hasn't called anyone in person mama/dada yet, but likes to point at people in her books and tell me/ask me "mama?". I guess she starting to figure out gender and is expressing it using the words she knows.
We often refer to Brooke as being one TOUGH little kid. I can probably count on one hand the number of times she has cried from pain (today's shots at the doctor were the worst in a long time). Often she will fall/run into something and not even be phased. The other day she fell off the curb while outside and hit her head and didn't even make a peep. Another day she ran into the corner of the fridge door and didn't cry. She just points at what hurt her and makes sure I know that the dang ground or door hurt her. Sometime I worry that she is so tough, but then I see her smell the flowers or give a baby a hug and remember that she still has some sweet little girl in her too.
Brooke loves to help but I am going to have to write a separate post just on that because I have lots cute pictures. She also loves a challenge. Probably the best way to keep her busy and out of trouble is to give her a new challenge. Something that stretches her mind a little further than I thought was possible. And she loves to put things back where they belong. She is usually pretty good at helping clean up and sometimes even insists on putting things back before we can move on.
She is an active toddler and just loves that we have a whole house and outside area to play in. She likes to wander and explore outside and is getting better and doing so without dragging me along. She likes to kick and throw her balls and chase them around. The one thing she doesn't really do yet is climb, but I'm more than okay with that! She does climb up the stairs/at the park but isn't interested in climbing onto the couch/chairs or out of her crib yet. Halleluiah! All her playing really tires her out and she has been sleeping much better too.
I hope I don't jinx anything by saying this, but Brooke is finally a great sleeper! At 12-months she was sleeping thru the night most nights (finally, after a year of being up every 2 hours) but was taking FOREVER to get to sleep and was completely dependent on me putting her to sleep. We decided to do some sleep training in October (at 13 months) for bedtime and it worked. Took a few nights of crying but once she started putting herself to sleep she never looked back and we were all happier during the day. We waited about a month and then did naps. Because she was only nursing to fall asleep at that point we also ended up weaning at the same time. I offered at other times during the day but she was more interested in playing and I didn't push the issue. She also went down to just one nap shortly after that. We suddenly had so much time! We weren't wasting a whole hour 3 times a day to get her to sleep and we had a nice big chunk of time in the morning and afternoon. Life got so much more enjoyable! As of right now she will sleep a solid 12-13 hours at night and then take a nap for 1.5-2 hrs during the day. So much better than her newborn or baby sleep!
Brooke started nursery at church two weeks ago and we are batting 50% right now. Brett took her both weeks and the first week was a huge success. She went right to the leader and happily played for the whole 2 hours. Last Sunday was a different story. It was a different leader and there were a few kids crying when Brett went to drop her off. He was able to leave her and checked back a few minutes later and she was playing happily but it didn't last. The leader came and found us with a clearly upset Brooke. She wasn't quite sure what she wanted so I stayed with her in the nursery and she fussed until music time and then was happy ...she loves her some music!
Talking. Between talking and signing Brooke is able to express herself (at least to me) pretty dang well. She is learning new words everyday and often repeats back what we say. She has a handful of words that she can/will say unprompted and a couple dozen animals names/noises that she loves to say. She also loves to jabber away in her baby language. Seriously, it is non-stop some days. Brooke was a pretty quiet baby but is a VERY noisy toddler. I love hearing her voice and being able to communicate with her. If I give her options she is very good at repeating back the one she wants (or at least the main sound). Although when she tries to point something out on her own (like at the store) I have to think really hard to figure out what she is trying to say, and sometimes have to give up, because her words aren't very clear yet. We are slowly getting it figured out though.
One of the biggest changes in looking at pictures from her 12 month post is all her curly hair! I have a love/hate relationship with curls (my own included) but most days I love hers! She still has her big beautiful blue eyes (that still stop people everywhere we go) and has 8 shiny white teeth. Her molars just recently came in (the ones on the right aren't fully in yet) but she handled it like a champ! She is big and thick (see the measurements above) and healthy!
