The Michael Family Musings: Mia, Months 16-18

Stats:
Mia is in the 78th percentile for weight and the 70th for height. She’s still in 18 month clothes, though for shirts 24 months seem to fit better (she has a long torso). 24 month pants and PJs are still a little long on her though. She’s in size 5 shoes, and is still in size 4 diapers. Her bangs are now in her eyes unless I pin them back, and when her hair is wet, it completely covers her neck. She’s looking so much like a little girl now and less like a baby.

Schedule:
She went down to one nap pretty quickly after the last blog post. She just stopped taking a second nap altogether, so I just stopped fighting her on it. Before daylight savings time, she was waking up between 8:30-9, but ever since it’s been more like 7:30-8. She normally goes down for nap between 12-1 and sleeps anywhere from one to two hours. We normally keep pretty busy during the day between playing, running errands and playdates. We start getting her ready for bed around 7:20-7:30, and she’s usually asleep by 8.

Milestones:
She’s getting really good at identifying animals and the sounds they make. If she knows what the animal is, she knows the sound it makes. If she doesn’t know the animal, she’ll ask and then ask what sound it makes. This has lead to the making up of several animal noises on our part!

She hasn’t formed complete sentences yet, but she’s getting closer. She’ll put 2 or 3 words together. Most of the time I know what she’s trying to say. Her vocabulary is insane and she talks constantly. When she doesn’t know what something is, she will ask and then repeat it as best she can.

She’s starting to remember things. If you ask her to recall what she did that day, she can usually remember the highlights.

She now has self-identity (meaning if she sees herself in a picture or the mirror, she knows it’s her and not some random baby). She has referred to herself by name a few times (Meeee-ah) but usually she calls herself ‘baby’.

She is getting better about climbing up and down stairs. We don’t have stairs in our house, so she really only gets to practice outside or at other people’s houses.

She’s gotten three more teeth since the last post, so she’s now up to 14. So ready for teething to be over!

She has gotten really good at climbing. She climbs on the furniture constantly.

She absolutely loves to dance. Pretty much any time she hears music she starts dancing or moving her arms around.

We have started getting more serious about discipline. She’s early into her terrible twos, so she’s started throwing tantrums, challenging our authority, and the like. When she misbehaves, we have ‘timeout’ for her. At this point, that means she sits on one of our laps for 5 minutes (or until she calms down) without toys or anything. Generally it does stop the behavior from recurring (at least for a period of time :-)).

I’m pretty sure she now has a sense of depth perception.

We’ve managed to get her pacifier down to something she only uses at naptime and bed. She still asks for it occasionally, but usually saying ‘Paci is just for night night’ is enough to get her to move onto something else.

She can match shapes pretty well. She has a little box of 3D shapes where the lid has holes for the corresponding shapes. She’s pretty good about matching them even if it takes her a few tries.

I was pretty sure she was going to be left-handed, but now I’m not so sure. When she colors or eats, she alternates hands. She seems to prefer holding utensils in her right hand, but she more often uses her left hand to feed herself. I guess time will tell.

She started showing some interest in the potty. We aren’t potty training yet by any means, but usually about once a day, she’ll say ‘pee-pee, poo-poo potty’. We’ll go sit her on the potty for an amount of time. She hasn’t actually gone in the potty, but hopefully she at least gets the idea.

She goes back and forth on being a good eater. Sometimes she’ll eat anything we put in front of her, other times she’ll only eat fruit.

Her manners are improving. She generally always says ‘thank you’, and she’s getting better about ‘please’.
She has said 'wuv oo' (I love you) a few times, which completely melts my heart. I definitely cried like a baby the first time she said it to me.

Big Events:
We went to Mia’s first circus! The circus has really cut down on the number of animals in the show, so overall, Mia didn’t seem that impressed.

We’ve taken two long car trips in the past three months. We went up to Indiana for a wedding (stopping in Nashville on the way for a few days) and also to Missouri for another wedding. Overall, she actually did quite well in the car. I think we have to thank the portable DVD player for that, but I’m not complaining. She still doesn’t sleep well in the car, but we might be making some progress on that front.

Mia had her first dentist appointment last month. She hated it, but given that she hates when anyone looks in her mouth, I figured that would be the case. She did enjoy getting a new toothbrush though.

She had a little stomach bug about a month ago. It only lasted a few days, but she of course managed to get me sick too!

Mia went trick-or-treating for the first time! We only went to about 10 houses, but she did really well. She didn’t say ‘trick-or-treat’, but she did say ‘thank you’ at every house.

Favorites:

Things do to: playing outside, reading, playing with blocks, dancing, bubbles, climbing, coloring, talking
Characters: Elmo, Minnie Mouse and Abby
Books: she really isn’t picky. We've started reading her the Harry Potter series before bed :-)
Songs: this has been a big time for music. She loves when we sing to her. Sometimes it’s the only way to calm her down. Some of her favorites are ‘The Eyes of Texas’ :-), ‘Twinkle, Twinkle Little Star’, ‘ABCs’, and ‘Old McDonald’. She tries her best to sing along, which is completely adorable. I can’t wait to teach her some Christmas songs!
Food: cheese, fruit (berries are her favorite), yogurt, applesauce, pretzels, pumpkin bread and muffins
Toys: She still loves Wolfie! She’s also getting more interested in dolls, her blocks and her music table
Shows: Sesame Street and Mickey Mouse Clubhouse

Games: she's gotten really into catch lately. Well, she calls it catch, but it's actually more like fetch. We'll throw the ball and ask her to throw it back, but she usually just walks it back over to us!
Movie: She’s doing better with movies as long as they’re animated
Animals: Basically any animal!

And here are the photos!