You, Me and Doggy Makes Three.: 18 months

A YEAR AND A HALF. Our child is a year and a half.

Clearly I'm having trouble believing that. It really does go by so fast.

At 18 months, Josie is still a little baldy but has hair slowly making its way onto her head. She loves hats and hoods and has learned how to put her hats on herself. She will also occasionally ask to wear a headband, though this is usually as we're getting ready for bed and she's emptying her dresser drawers. She still loves her belly button (and anyone else's) and she's still an avid thumb sucker.

She understands people leaving now and will usually offer a wave and a kiss to who ever is leaving. We've even had some successful mom-leaving-not-with-dad incidents- most notably with Aunt Megan and a time or two at the church nursery. Even when she's dropped off for the nursery now she's cry for half a minute (if that) and then either sit quietly on someone's lap or get down and play. I'm so proud of her for this- this used to include LOTS of screaming, clinging and many times a "buzz" back to pick her up because she wouldn't calm down. The gym childcare is still a no-go though. You win some, you lose some.

She's finally down to one nap-around 12:30- most often till 2ish though once or twice a week I get a 2.5-3 hour nap. I'm not surprised it's taking her a longer time to settle into longer afternoon naps- it's taken her a while to settle into each of her napping patterns throughout her life. Here's hoping our next child (whenever they come along) gets it down quicker. Sometime in the beginning of November I finally decided we weren't doing two naps anymore because she wouldn't sleep for for one of the naps and it was usually the afternoon she wouldn't take...resulting in a very tired kid by bedtime. So one day I deemed it one nap day and after a few days she got on board. At night she's an excellent sleeper and now goes down around 7 and sleeps till 7:30ish the next morning. Often I leave her in her crib till close to 8 so I can grab a shower or finish up some work and she sits quietly sucking her thumb, looking at the door.

She has learned a bunch of words and seems to talk/babble all day long. Unfortunately one of the words she learned is "no". Except she doesn't use it correctly all the time and it comes out like "Nooooooooo" in a sing-song voice. Sometimes no means yes. We're working on that. Other words include:

Mommy
Daddy
Dog
Good dog
Bad dog
Down
Duck
Dee-Dee or Pay-Dee for Paisley

She can also kind of say "Megan" for Aunt Megan and she can say her friend Ellie's name. She has learned a few signs and can sign for more, all done and please and uses these often.

Her 18 month check up isn't until tomorrow but I took her in for a sick visit towards the end of November and they weighed her (with her clothes on ) and she was 21 lbs 4 ozs. Usually she's weighed with a clean diaper and no clothes so I think she'll be between 21 and 22 lbs at tomorrow's appointment.

She's a pretty good eater for a toddler though she definitely has her picky and not so picky days. She's still a pretty staunch vegetarian, though she will eat bacon (HA) and meat if it's extremely well hidden in something (like salmon cakes and chili). She eats plenty of other protein sources and gets iron through green veggies (in smoothies) and legumes so her doctor is not concerned and neither are we. :)

In November we took a trip to the National Zoo on Veteran's Day and Josie liked seeing the animals and loved freely walking around. Right before Thanksgiving we went up to stay with my close friend Anne for a week in Lancaster (and saw Tina while we were there!) while Charlie had to entertain out of town visitors at work. We spent Thanksgiving with Charlie's best friend David's family down in Woodbridge and had a visit from my sister the week before Christmas. Christmas was spent in PA at my parents house and Josie was sufficiently spoiled by her grandparents, aunt and great aunt.

18 months
Favorite things: camelbak water bottles, Paisley, phones, her boots, hats, her new cozy coupe (Christmas gift!), books, all dogs
Favorite foods: bananas, yogurt, clementines, cheese, oatmeal
Best habits: requiring multiple kisses when saying good bye/good night
Worst habit: throwing food off the highchair when she doesn't want it any more
Best facial expression: her "cute face". (pictured below.) She tilts her head, shrugs her shoulders and puts on a huge grin. Best thing we've ever taught her.