18 Months Old

Eighteen months old already!

At 18 months the Pheebs is wearing size 18-24 month and 2T clothes. She is wearing size 4 diapers and size 5 in shoes.

Her blonde hair is finally starting to grow in nicely. It's long enough on the top to comb to one side or the other, and curls up in the back when damp. I'm pretty sure that we will enter mullet territory sometime in the next six months.

She had her 18 month check up last week. She was
24 lbs 5 oz.
32 inches
and in the fiftieth percentile ... I think. I asked someone to write it down for me but she forgot and then so did I. We go back in a couple of weeks so I'll ask for it then. Poor little girlie had been running a high fever all of the day prior to her appointment and while the fever broke early that morning, I wasn't comfortable with her getting shots right away, so we'll go back for that. (The Boogie got her flu shot and did great! No tears at all. What a big girl she's getting to be.)

The Pheebs is just so much fun to have around. I LOVE this age. She is like a little sponge. She repeats anything and everything we say. She follows simple instructions like "Go get a diaper" or "Throw this in the trash." She says "thank you" all the time and usually adds "bye!" at the end. So we'll hand her a diaper to throw away and she'll say "Dain doo, bye!"

She tips her head to one side and asks, "why?" Sometimes she pauses then adds, "you do dat?"

The Boogie builds towers out of nesting/stacking blocks, and Peabody counts "One, doo, tree!" and knocks down the tower.

Action shot of Peabody bouncing a block off of the Boogie's head.

When she sees letters she begins to sing the alphabet song.

When she sees a rainbow she sings a song about it that she learned from "The Cat in the Hat" on PBS.

We have a travel-size Doodle Pro. It looks a lot like this.

amazon.com

 

Peabody loves that thing. Sometimes I hide it from her because she drives me crazy with it. She brings it to me and pushes it into my hands pleading "Mama Mama Mama" and I have to draw something for her. Then she says "Dain doo, bye!" and sits down with it and scribbles all over what I drew and then erases it and then wants me to draw something again. Sometimes I draw shapes and name them -- last night I drew a triangle and she named it before I could! Impressive. I also draw faces: happy, sad, angry, surprised. She can identify those too. Sometimes we do corresponding voices which is hilarious. "'appy!" she says in a bright voice; "saaaaad" she says in a sad voice, then reaches out to pat my shoulder, "it's mmm-may [okay]"; when I say, "show me surprised face" she raises her eyebrows and shrieks; angry is a deep growl along with a grin -- she can't keep a straight face.

She loves music and dances around when we are listening to something upbeat. We listen to Pandora a lot and while I prefer Nat King Cole and Ella Fitzgerald, sometimes I will turn on the toddler station and the Pheebs will sing along and dance all over the place to "The Wheels on the Bus" and her favorite "If You're Happy and You Know It."

The big purple dinosaur is still the only guaranteed soother for the overwrought toddler, but lately Blue's Clues has also become very popular around here. It is very repetitive which is comforting to small persons. Peabody chants along to the phrases and does the hand motions accompanying them.

She is hitting the Boogie much less than before. She is generous with kisses (sometimes.) She really loves her sister. At bedtime we pray together and then she immediately kisses the Boogie goodnight. Then she tries to tuck the Boogie in, and she goes to the drawer to get the Boogie a "beepee." Sometimes she wants her own burpie to sleep with, because the Boogie has one. Cute little copycat.

She is fascinated when the Boogie goes potty. We use the word "potty" but for some reason she always repeats "poo poo." I guess the fascination with that word begins very early! Shortly after she woke up from a nap the other day, she frowned at me and said "poo poo?" "Oh, you need to go potty?" I asked her. She ran into the bathroom and pounded on the toilet lid saying "open!" Why not? I thought, and took off her diaper and held her on the seat ... and she peed! Into the toilet! We all lavished praise upon her but she was very matter-of-fact about it. Despite trying that again a few times there hasn't been a repeat performance, but I gotta say I'm pretty impressed that it happened at all.

Both girls like my Nook. I have downloaded several interactive stories for them, and some coloring/drawing apps and games for the Boogie to play. Peabody pleads for "a tewey" when she sees it.
"No story," I say.
"A tewey!" she repeats, grinning impishly.
"No story."
"A tewey!"
"No story!"
"Mmm-may [okay]," she concedes.

 

Despite what the majority of these pictures imply, my children do not spend their days dressed in pajamas. They do, of course, sleep in pajamas. I slip in to check on them before I go to bed. Sometimes I have to take pictures. I am always surprised that the flash doesn't wake them.