Where does the time go? Seriously, it needs to at least slow down. I was looking at pics of Em when she was smaller, and by smaller I mean just a couple months ago and I cannot believe how much chubbier she was then. And I never thought she has ever been a chubby baby....and it's so weird to see her now when her hair was shorter because it is getting so long now and she lets me put barrettes in it. She's losing her baby fat and looking so much like a little girl now.
We went for her 15 month appointment the other day, she is 20 pounds 14 ounces (so exactly 12 pounds more since birth) and 30.5 inches tall. She loves to push buttons so the first time I put her on the scale she reached over and turned it off! I said typical girl, doesn't want to get weighed. So the doctor came in and we talked about her lack of walking. At her one year appointment she said if she isn't walking at 15 months then she wanted to send her for some evaluation, but this time she said I can look up online for ways to encourage her, but it's really not a problem until 18 months.
That makes me happy to hear, no one wants to think their kid is delayed in anything. But I think because she is cruising furniture all the time and pulling up on everything, it's really just a matter of time, when she feels confident enough to try. So far she seems to not really do something until she is certain she can do it. Tonight at my inlaws, she was cruising the ottoman and she tried to make the two foot gap between the couch and the ottoman. She fell a bit short and fell down, but that's really the first time I've seen her actually let go of something and try to make it to something else, so there is progress all the time.
Plus with her being an only child and crawling so late, it makes total sense that she's a late walker. She asked how many words she says....it seems like just the last week or two she's been saying a lot more. It's mostly repeating, not exactly using them in context, but she says mama and dada (actually she calls a lot of things dada, like cookies), baby, no (her favorite) and today she said hi. I think she sometimes says yes too, but way less often than no. So then the doctor tried to examine her. Emily kept pushing the stethoscope away and pushing her hands away, she'd give her the furrowed brow and I swear at one point she paired the stink face with her hands on her hips.
Her doctor was like oh my goodness, what happened to that little baby that would let me do anything? I told her about her hitting her head on things when she doesn't get her way (although that has lessened a lot recently) and slapping and biting people, and she bites herself when she gets really mad. Dr. B was like oh goodness, she acts like a two year old. So, I'm hoping she's having her terrible two's early and then she'll go back to being that sweet easy going kid. One can hope right?
It's like she was false advertising. She was such an easy newborn and baby, so happy and easy going, but now the fun begins. I guess you can't have a good newborn and toddler too. But she is still a good public baby, so that's all that matters. She can be a little Tasmanian devil at home if she wants to be. So she got three more vacs, she cried of course but she was all done crying by the time I got her dressed and back in her stroller. So she's getting better each time. Later on she was butt scooting and she saw one of the band aids still on her leg and every time she scooted she'd say owe owe owe. I don't even think it hurt, she just knows what band aids mean.
Today we finally made it to story time. I've tried to go twice before but it's at 10am and some mornings I just can't get going in time. So we finally went, it was at our local library. It was a much smaller group than the one we went to near my brother's house, and it just seemed more organized and well ran. The girl that did it was really good with the kids and seemed really good at keeping order in the room. There was a carpet in the middle where the older kids sat and there was chairs in a horseshoe shape around the carpet so most of the parents sat there, and those with little little ones sat in the chairs with our kids on our laps.
So for most of it Emily just sat there and looked around, again looking a bit overwhelmed by all the kids. But for the last 5 minutes I stood her on the floor in front of me. She plopped down on her bum and butt scooted over to the carpet. So then she was just scooting through all the kids, looking at them all as she went and then sat for a minute or two and listened to the story. It was so cute, I was so proud of her socializing. I kept waiting for her to look around, frantically looking for me but she didn't. That made me kind of sad, but at the same time happy that she joined the other kids and seemed fine. I don't necessarily hope that she is a social butterfly, but I hope she isn't as shy and have as much anxiety as I did as a kid.
So the story time portion was only 30 minutes, which I think is good, even the older kids were getting a bit ansty toward the end. Then the second portion was going outside and playing with sidewalk chalk. We tried, but Em just kept trying to eat it, so we headed back inside. My intention was to find the DVDs and see if there was anything good, but I came across the kid section so I decided to check it out. I've been to that library a half dozen times or so in the past, but not having a kid before, I never ventured over to that side. Holy cow, it was so cute. It was a really nice big section, had lots of books, and what I assume is books on tape that you can follow along, they had some computers for games, there was a couple tablet stations, stuffed animals everywhere and a really cute play nook with those wooden bead mazes and some tubs full of toys and puzzles and just a lot of stuff. That section looked like a play room at a daycare.
Man, I am really not up on the SAHM knowledge. It never ever dawned on me to take her to the library to play. There isn't another storytime for another two weeks, but we could probably go there to play at least once a week and there is enough to do that it would be really hard for her to get bored. I guess I just haven't checked these things out yet because she is too little for most things, but she had a great time at the library. She played with the bead maze for a little while, and it was up on a small table so she could walk around the table playing.
Then I got out some big squishy blocks for her to play with. She doesn't always want to, but I am trying to encourage her to start putting her toys away, and she loves to hand me things so she handed me each and every block for me to put away. Then she got out a big puzzle but she just enjoyed tossing the pieces out of the container, putting them back in and then tossing them out again. I heard a few other moms talking about going to play in the kitchen, so the area we didn't explore must have a little kitchen for the kids to play in. We didn't go over there because most of the kids were coming back in from sidewalk chalk and they were all in the kitchen, so we'll check that out sometime that it's less crowded. When she was at the bead maze table this little girl about two years old came over to play and she said hey baby to Em, and I swear Em said hi back.
I feel like such an accomplished mom today. Most days I feel like she gets bored because I don't have much for her to do aside from play with the same toys she plays with every day. If we don't go for a walk or bike ride, there isn't much else variety in her day. I feel like she is too little for much arts and crafts, she just tries to eat everything, and so far we haven't had another opportunity to go in her pool. The other day I took her out to play in her walker in the drive way but she wouln't keep her hat on. With that bleach blonde hair and almost clear skin, she has to have a hat on. Other than that she just goes to run errands with me, which can't be all that fun, and occasionally go to Greenfield Village. But the library will be a great place to go, especially on rainy days and this winter.
We plan to start her on swim lessons this winter. There is a really cute swim school nearby that we want to take her to. I figure by almost two years old I will be less nervous about her taking swim lessons, and we'll need something fun to do in the winter. I took her for a long bike ride the other day. We normally go to the school at the end of the block but it must have been an in-service day for teachers because there were some cars in the lot. I didn't want to worry about dodging any cars, so we rode to the park. It was ok, but I don't like riding on the sidewalk, you just can't go very fast when every block you have to slow down and watch for cars when you cross the street, and there is no way I am riding in the street with her in the trailer.
It was nice to ride around the path at the park, but it's not very big and has quite a few sharp curves. I want to take her to the park that I ride in, which is basically a 20 mile long road with park area on either side. I ride on the shoulder of the road, but there is a bike/walking path too that I'll ride on with her. But to get there I would have to ride in the road for part of it, through the parking lot of our old apartments and along a narrow dirt path next to the road. No thanks. So one of these days I think I will try cramming my bike in the back end up my SUV. If it doesn't fit then I guess I will have to invest in a trailer hitch and a bike rack so we can go. At least the bike trailer collapses and folds up. We're going up north for the 4th and in town there is a great bike path, so I'm going to take my bike and the trailer. It's so nice, it is all through the woods so it's a beautiful shaded path.
My MIL took her this afternoon like usual, my SIL was coming over with her kids to swim in their pool so I sent Emily's swimsuit along. She took her in the big pool with a floaty and then also let her splash around in her baby pool. She only napped for a little over an hour today, and I didn't pick her up until 9:30 because Ryan and I went to see Jaws at the theater for a special 40th anniversary showing. I can never get out of there in less than 30 minutes because my MIL and I gab too much, so we didn't get home until almost 11. She fell asleep on the way home, and I normally cannot ever get her out of her carseat without waking her. She woke up for a second and then put her head on my shoulder and went back to sleep.
She stirred a little again when I put her in her crib, but then snuggled her Kayla Bear and went right back to sleep. I'm going to pay for this in the morning when she pees through her diaper, but I just couldn't bear to wake her up to put an overnight one on. But, she did go to bed without her bedtime bottle, so maybe without that extra 8 ounces, her diaper will hold. Such a big day my girl had, good thing we have nothing on the calendar for the next 8 days!
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