Tuesday, April 27, 2010

15 months

I've been struggling with how to encapsulate all that is Miss Maribelle Rose these days, because now more than ever, she is such a dynamic, entertaining and complex little lady. It was so much easier to do these sort of updates when she was, say, a six-month-old, because frankly, there wasn't a whole lot to report. But as a 15-month-old, she's busy, she's opinionated (a smidge bossy, shall I say), she's silly like her daddy and always, always keeping us on our toes. And that's not even a fraction of all that is Miss B. But I'll do my best in presenting a mini snapshot of the little person she is becoming. I apologize if this gets long ... she's doing so much, and there's nowhere in her baby book to record all this stuff!


Weight: 21.8 lbs (25th percentile)
Height: 30 3/4 in. (50-75th percentile)
Head: 46 cm (50th) percentile
Wears a size 4ish shoe
Wears between a size 12 and 18 months
Wears a size 3 diaper

Here's what Maribelle's up to as a 15-month-old:

Baby sign language rocks our socks! With the encouragement of our daycare provider, we've taught Maribelle quite a few baby signs, and let me tell you, they are an amazing, amazing communicative tool. It makes life so much easier now that she can actually tell us what she wants. Some of the signs are honest-to-goodness real sign language, and others are just made-up motions that we connected to a certain word or action. She's the master at "more," (displayed in the first photo below) which was the first sign she learned a few months ago and was a literal breakthrough. I can't tell you how useful it was for her to learn this word, and it seemed like once she realized that these silly gestures were in fact effective, she picked up on a few other signs right away. Seriously, you show this girl once and she's got it down cold. She uses "all done" (shown in the second photo below), "daddy," "hungry," "cold," "hot," "up," and "milk" on the regular all day long.


* We have a climber! Seriously, it looks like she's channeling Evil Knieval in this photo, which is who she's become in her own sort of way. All of a sudden climbing is the coolest thing since Yo Gabba Gabba, and it's been keeping us on high alert! It all started when she mastered climbing on to the couch about a week ago, and then proceeded to climb onto the dishwasher door, the doggy steps in our bedroom and the little riding toy you see here. It's actually pretty comical when she tackles this riding toy, as she scrambles on top of the seat, slowly finds her footing and raises her hands in the air like she's a regular circus side show. She also loves climbing all over her Dora couch and her other favorite apparatus: me. Don't worry, the dishwasher jungle gym is no longer open for business, and her riding toy antics are only approved under adult supervision.



Outside. Oh my gosh, PLEASE don't mention that word in her presence, and PLEASE don't say the word "swing" either. That is, unless you want to spend at least one hour pushing her on the swing (because any less isn't good enough) and feel like wrestling a little midget to put on her shoes and/or coat before she goes outside. We've been spending lots and lots of time at our neighborhood playgrounds and area parks, because they seriously keep Maribelle entertained and me sane.


 

* Talking. She holds intense conversations with herself, but the problem is we have no idea what she's saying. She's awesome at saying "Hi Daddy!" and not only greets Jeremy that way, but also says the same when she sees me or the dogs. Sometimes it's debatable whether she is actually saying "Hi Doggy!" when she sees the dogs, but it's plain as day that she is in fact NOT saying "Hi Mommy!" She's awesome at saying "that" and "this" and sometimes we get a "What's that." We're doing a lot of identification of objects these days, sometimes ID-ing an object two and three and ten times in a row. We're pretty sure she also says "thank you" or something close to that, and she's been working on "baby" and "ball" as of late. And if it's animal sounds you're looking for, you're in luck, because she can imitate a dog, monkey, bird, fish, owl and cow.

Other notables worth mentioning:
* She can identify many parts of her body, including hair, ears, eyes, nose, teeth, belly, fingers and piggies (toes).

* She loves to tell the dogs "ahhh, ahh, AHHH!' when they bark, as if she is saying "no, no, NO!" And she's been known to say it to people, too (such as other kids at her daycare, whenever anyone cries. See what I mean about being a smidge bossy?)

* She's still a great sleeper, sleeping between 12 and 13 hours a night, and taking one nap a day, usually for about two hours. And unfortunately, she still sleeps with a pacifier (and I'm dreading the day we start eliminating this).

* She loves using a straw and is figuring out how to use a spoon for eating instead of playing. And if competitive baby eating was a sport, she would totally be a champion. People are always amazed at just how much food she can pack away in one sitting. Yet she's still so tiny! She hasn't met a food that she won't eat, and her faves at the moment are blackberries and mac n' cheese. She's also transitioned really well to only drinking one bottle a day (at bedtime).

1 comment:

Lena said...

What a cute little daredevil!