The Sixteenth Month

"Head, shoulders, knees and toes (knees and toes)"

That's right - Kaitlin can now find her head, toes, nose, ears, belly button and teeth. Well, most times she can. Sometimes she gets a little confused and keeps pointing to her nose when you ask her where other things are. She can also find your nose (and her bears nose, and monkeys nose, and dolls nose, and...) and she LOVES to find Mommy's belly button. Usually when we are out in public. That's cool.

(I swear I didn't know that she was wearing the same outfit in her fifteen month update. She does have more than one onesie, I promise.)

Kaitlin is turning into a very loving child and showers every stuffed animal, book and kid in sight with a million kisses and hugs. Where she used to give slobbery, open mouth kisses she now makes a kissing noise with her mouth and puckers her little lips up. She is in love with all of her stuffed animals and dolls and loves to have them all around her (either on the couch or in her crib or all over the floor). She'll go to each one, touch them on the head and give them a kiss before moving on to the next one. And dogs. Ohhh this girls love for dogs knows no boundaries. On the opposite end of the spectrum she has also turned into a shrieking, crying, screaming mess if she has to do something she doesn't want to or if you try and stop her from doing something she wants to do. Very Jekyll and Hyde over here.

Kaitlin started school this month and it has been a bit of a roller coaster. I wrote about her first day here and luckily things have drastically improved since then. The first few weeks were awful but by the fourth week she wasn't crying when I dropped her off, and was only a little upset once I came to pick her up. This past week was our best yet - she even got EXCITED as we were walking into school and I was telling her about all the fun things she was going to do (buggy ride, playing with balls - story time!!) and she didn't cry one tear when I picked her up. Success!! Hopefully it continues ;)

We are still on the teething road from hell (I say that but compared to other kids it probably isn't that bad). She has one new molar and I can see two more canines just below the gums. I am ready for teething to be over!

And can we talk about toddler eating habits please? I mean....what is the deal?! Loving a food one day, hating it the next. Acting like you are trying to give them rat poison when really it's some lovely strawberries. Kaitlin has even begun rejecting POUCHES which means she is getting barely any fruits and vegetables in her diet at all. I never thought that I would practically have to BEG my child to eat a pouch. But that is what it has come to folks. And most times she gives it a weary eye and then walks away. As of right now the only things she will eat are: quesadillas (with just cheese, or shredded yellow squash/zucchini if she can't tell it's in there), ravioli, pasta with tomato sauce, eggs (sometimes), oatmeal (sometimes), pancakes (sometimes), freeze dried strawberries (?!?!), dried apples, cheese and milk. I think that about covers it. She has not eaten a single, WHOLE piece of fruit since the beginning of August when we were up in NY. I think the most aggravating part of it is that JUST when you think you have a "safe" food that they will consistently eat they turn around and act like you are the worst person in the world to even think about offering it to them to eat. And you wonder why I drink ;)

Kaitlin has added a couple new "words" to her repertoire, which is an exciting development. She can now say - dada, yes, ah-ah (monkey noise), ar-ra-ra (dog noise), vrrmm (car noise), uh-oh, ow (for "wow"). All very exciting. She is also getting better at imitating words that you ask her to say. For instance I said to her, "Can you say 'UP'?" and she looked at me for a minute and said, "Uh". She is practically a genius ;)

We have quite the book worm on our hands too. She loves, LOVES her books. We read them morning, noon and night. She reads them on the floor, on the couch, on the chair. She would read them in the bathtub if we let her. She has about 20 favrotie books at the moment and we ready them all 49583459 times a day. We probably spend a solid 50% of our day reading books. Although it's gotten to the point where she has one or two favorite pages in each book. Often times she doesn't even want me to read the story, she just flips to the page that she likes and gives it a kiss or makes a happy face. If I try to read it she waves her arm and says, "SSHHHHH". Her teachers said that she loves to read books when she's in school too. I better get this kid to the library!

She is a running, walking, climbing (she has to climb into EVERY box she sees) ball full of energy. She's happy, emotional and energetic crazy head full of love, kisses and hugs. She can really drive me crazy but then manages to erase all of that craziness with one sweet look, one kiss out of the blue or one big, goofy smile.

The Tenth Month

We finally saw the return of our smiley, happy baby in her tenth month. Sure, she still cries and gets frustrated, but she is slowly learning how to handle those emotions and I am getting better at recognizing them. It helps that her two front teeth have now come it - they were tough ones and seemed to really bother her a lot. As Kaitlin approaches her one year birthday I can see more and more toddler in her every day. She is becoming less of a baby and more of a toddler - and as cute and fun as it is, it makes me really sad too. She is becoming more and more independent and I know once she starts walking I'll be lucky if I can grab her for a few seconds for a quick cuddle. I'm really taking in these last few "baby" months and trying to enjoy every minute of it.

This truly is the golden age of babies. Kaitlin's personality continues to emerge and shine through a little more each day. She is starting to really laugh and come out of her shell, even when we are around other people. She loves to "talk", especially while eating or in the car - Brian says she sings along to the music on the radio. She shows true pleasure and displeasure from playing with a toy (or when a toy is taken away from her).

Her top two middle teeth have finally come in, and although it took a couple rough weeks of skipped naps/tons of drool/chewing on EVERYTHING, she is finally back to her normal self. That makes a total of SIX teeth as of today. And the road to walking continues. She is so much more confident on her feet now than she was a month ago. There is no piece of furniture that she can't cruise on and she easily moves from on piece to another. She crawls super fast too, zooming around the house to get to whatever she wants to play with. She's discovered that she can open cabinets and drawers, and could spend endless hours in the kitchen and pantry pulling things down and playing with them. No hand towel is safe from being pulled down and thrown around the room.

I love how calm and relaxed she looks in this picture - just chillin' at the grocery store!

Kaitlin is also starting to become one smart cookie. Long gone are the days when I could hide something from her so she wouldn't play/drool/chew on it. Now when I hide something from her (usually my iPhone or the remote) she goes right for it - whether I hide it behind my back or up on the chair - she knows where I put it and tries to get it. And you can't just shake another toy in front of her face and hope that it distracts her long enough for her to forget about it. Believe me, I've tried. She basically gives me a blank stare long enough to say, "Seriously mom? Is that the best you've got?" and then goes right back to trying to get whatever I've "hidden" from her.

Another exciting thing that has been developing over the last month is how much Kaitlin loves to play on the playground - and not just the swings. Sure, she still LOVES to swing and is still obsessed. But now that she can climb up stairs and stand easily and crawl like a crazy person she really enjoys going on the play set/jungle gym (what are they called these days?!) She crawls up the stairs, loves to "drive" with the wheel and even go down the slide! And I think most of all she loves all the other kids that are playing too. She is constantly observing them and watching what they are doing. You can see the little wheels in her head turning trying to figure out if she can do it to and how much she wants to play with them. I think its great for her to be around slightly older babies/toddlers to watch them walk and play, hopefully it encourages her to take those first steps. Although I'm sure as soon as she does I am going to regret saying that :)

I had to think pretty long and hard about what I've learned this month. While I am always learning more about being a parent, I feel like those monumental, big realizations and lessons have slowly tapered off and aren't popping up as often as they used to. Either that or my head is so full of nursery rhymes, diaper orders and nursery school applications that I just can't remember them. Alas, I managed to scrounge up a couple of nuggets of lessons learned this past month...

Sometimes, showers are overrated...

As you may or may not remember, one of the first lessons I learned after becoming a mom was that a nice, hot shower will make you feel human again. I still very strongly believe that. However, I used to need to take a shower to make me feel more like myself, and to give myself a break from the baby. But now...now that I have a better handle on things and we are in more of a routine and I am a lot less frazzled by being a mom (but still frazzled, let's be real here), I feel less of a need to take a shower every single day. And let's be honest - who has time for that $h*t?! Now that my business is starting to pick up and with tons of house projects that always seem to be lurking on my to-do list, sometimes I feel much better and much more sane NOT taking a shower. Sometimes I just don't want to waste one of the two breaks I get in a day (ie, nap time) taking a shower and getting dressed. Dude, embrace the yoga pants and a pony tail and get on with your day!

Routine, routine, routine

If you have read this blog for any length of time you probably know that naps are not Kaitlin's strong suit. Other than that, she's a really good baby. One thing that I have learned - particularly over the last month - is that routine matters. What's that old saying - you can lead a horse to water, but you can't make it drink? With all the obstacles and growing pains that babies go through it is imperative to have a stable routine that they can depend on. Whether or not Kaitlin ends up taking her two naps a day, that's anyones guess. But the important thing is that I put her down for those naps at (roughly) the same time every day. She knows that we will have her solid breakfast an hour after she wakes up in the morning. If we haven't made it out of the house all morning she is crawling over to her stroller in the afternoon wanting to go outside and take one of our walks. Babies are smart and even if you don't think they remember certain things it's amazing what they will surprise you with. Also, when they are going through rough times of change - think teething, growth spurts, cognitive leaps - it's important for the rest of their life to stay stable. I am convinced that if you stick to your routine during these times of change (as much as you can, of course, and afterwards you might need to tweek your routine depending on what milestone has just passed) it helps them get through them faster and easier.