15 months

Can my baby really be 15 months old!? I know I say that every month…but really? Time is flying! Andi is at such a fun stage. She is constantly talking and exploring.

I feel that she is really saying a lot of words now so I decided I needed to make a more complete list. She is now able to answer questions more consistently. When Andi is asked, “What is your name?” She will say, “Andi.” When Dave asks her, “Who do you love?” Andi enthusiastically says, “Dadda!” If you ask her, “Andi, what do you want?” She will almost always say, “this.” So you then have to ask, this, what?” Then she can tell you what she wants…usually snacks, wa-wa (water), or pac-im-bah (pacifier). More words: Andi, Aunt, all done, bye-bye, bobo, book, ball, ba-ba (bottle), bug, beep, baby, bellum ba (belly button), buttafa (butterfly), button, bath, Big Ba (Big Bird), baseball, basketball, Cookie (Cookie Monster), cat, cheese (not because she likes to eat it, but she will now say cheese when she sees me with the camera), cup, cawl (crawl), Count, ceweal (cereal), car, chair, doggy, Dadda, doe do da (don’t do that), door, diada (diaper), dance, down, din-a-dar (dinosaur), Elbo (Elmo) she loves Elmo right now, eyes, ears, feet, flu-fu (fluffy dog), golf, go-go-go, hair, happy, horse, honk, hi, hands, help, highcha (highchair), house, hop-hop, hippo, hot, I gee sha (I’m gonna get you). We say this to her as we chase her around the house…she loves it!), kiss, light, Mama, Mommy (said Mommy instead of Mama for the first time this week), Meena (Not sure what this means, but she has been saying it a lot. I’ll get back to you when I figure it out.), more, no-no, Nana, night-night, oatmeal, open, ouch, Osca (Oscar the Grouch), out, Pewl-Pewl (Pearl-Pearl), pat-pat, Pop, please, play, puwse (purse), porcupa (porcupine), pig, pizza, puppy, Peeta (another word I do not know the meaning of but she says a lot…will get back to you.), wok-wok (rock), snacks, stro-stro (stroller), sit, sly (slide), shoes, socks, turtle, toes, tractor, ticka-ticka (tickle tickle), truck, than-da (thank you), tots, tees (trees), up, wa-wa. (water), wak (walk), wawis (walrus). New favorite word is happy. She will walk around the house and just say happy-happy-happy over and over. So cute!

She usually greets everyone with a wave and says “hi.” When we are at home and she hears the front door open, she enthusiastically yells, “HEY!” She is so excited to have company.

When we go into her room in the morning to get her out of her crib, she stands up and says, “Hi!” Then she runs from side to side of the crib as if to be chased. Then says, “thank you and hands off her pacifier as if to say, ok, I’m ready to get out of bed.

When she hears someone sneeze, she will say, “Bless you.”

Animal sounds: alligator (“arrr”), butterfly (puts hands in air and opens and closes fists), bird (“teet-teet”), bear (“arrrr”), bumblebee (“bzzzzzz”), cow (“mooooo”), cat (“mowwwww”), dinosaur (“arrr”), owl ("who who"), dog (“uh-uh-uh”), duck (“cack cack”), elephant (“uhhh” and raises air over head like an elephant trunk), fish (bluh-bluh-bluh), horse (“neeeigh”), lion (“arrr”), monkey (“ah-ah-ah-ah”), rooster (“ah-a-a-a-ah”) snake (“ssssssss”), sheep (“baaaa”), car (“vroom”). She is able to identify many more animals if looking at a book and asked to find….She will search the page and point to the correct animal. So impressive!

When Andi is hungry or asked if hungry and wants to eat, she will smack her lips or click tongue on roof of mouth. When eating, if something is yummy, she will say mmm..mmm or dance (bob up and down) in her highchair.

Andi will pat me on the back when I hold her and will say, “awe” and pat her dolls on the back when giving them a hug. Precious! She still loves to give kisses. Must give everyone kisses before going to bed and kiss her animals too. If she gives one persona a kiss, she leans in to give everyone else a kiss. Such a sweet girl.

Andi has learned already what things are considered hot. She will touch my coffee mug and say hot. She will pat the outside of the oven and say hot. When we put her into her car seat, she will say, “Hot, hot.” She will also let me know when food is too hot or when it is hot outside when she steps foot on the back porch. It has been so hot here 100 degrees or close to that everyday. We can really only do play time outside in the morning or late, late evening. And shoes are a must for her or else her tiny feet will get burned being that she walks and runs everywhere. No more crawling..unless we ask her to.

She is great with commands. Ask her to sit and she will. She will stand up, sit down, lay down, roll over (ha! sounds like I am talking about our dog..but this is Andi). She will also go and get what we ask her to find. She open or close the door or cabinet when asked. She will dance, clap her hands, and stomp her feet.

Andi can point to many of her body parts: hair, eyes, ears, mouth, nose, teeth, tongue, belly button, toes, feet, fingers, hands.

I have finally gotten Andi to drink milk out of a cup (well kind of). Before this week, Andi would only drink water out of her cup and milk out of a bottle. I said that I was going to just give her milk in a cup and say take it or leave it. Well I just couldn’t. I would put milk (even diluted milk) in her sippy cup and she would whine and refuse to drink it. If she looked at it and saw that it was not water, she would push the cup away. And if I am able to trick her into taking a sip, she would make the worst face as if she were going to vomit. Really, Andi?! So this week, I bought a new kind of sippy cup (a Tommee Tippee cup that we had not yet tried, and not a spill-proof valve). I put ice cubes in the cup and then filled it ¼ of the way with milk and the other ¾ water. She drank it! I was so excited! Funny what I get excited about. I just know that Andi needs to be drinking more milk than she has been with one bottle a day (before bed). She is to be drinking about 20 oz and I would say she’s been getting about 8 oz. So I am thrilled that she will drink milk from this cup. So today I put the same ratio of milk/water in another new sippy cup (Nuby, because I did not want her drink spilling on the floor if she dropped it and went to play) and she refused it. What?! So I poured what was in there back into the Tommee Tippee cup and voila! She drank it. What a funny girl. She definitely knows what she does and does not like and isn’t afraid to let us know.

Andi continues to be an excellent sleeper, sleeping through the night about 10 hours straight. Andi has been waking up each morning at 6:30 on the dot. This week, maybe she realizes it is summer, and has let us sleep in until 7:15 to 7:30. Isn’t that great?! Her bedtime is typically 8:30 pm but will sometimes get sleepy before then. She lets us know by asking for her pacifier or bottle and sometimes lays on the floor, so tired. We still give her a bottle before bed most nights mainly so we can get her to drink some milk. She gets her pacifier to sleep. And we still put an extra one in the crib so she can find one if she wakes up searching for a pacifier to put herself back to sleep. Not sure when we will ask her to give up the pacifier. She really only uses it for car rides and sleeping. And she will hand it over when we ask. Also when we get her out of bed, she takes out her pacifier and hands it to us and says “thank you.” Or when we are riding in the car and I go to get her out, she does the same thing. Andi still takes two naps a day. Usually about 9:30 in the morning until 11:30 and then another nap around 3:00 pm until 4:30 or 5:00 pm.

Andi is an excellent eater. She loves to try what we are eating for dinner, and a lot of times likes it so that what she will get too. She loves pizza. She would probably eat “snacks” all day if we let her. Snacks consist of cereal, goldfish crackers, teddy grahams, etc. What’s interesting is that the only fruit Andi will eat is banana. Cannot seem to get her to eat or try any other fruits (unless pureed). She will still eat pureed fruits and veggies. We like to give her the pouches by Plum because she can suck the food right out of them, no spoon required. She likes meat sticks and Gerber toddler bowls of mac and cheese and spaghetti stars. Andi likes to feed herself so some meals may get messy. She will still let me spoon-feed her, which is great for messy meals. Andi still prefers oatmeal in the morning and will ask for it if I try to fix her something else.

Andi wears size 18 months shirts and onesies and 12 months dresses, shirts, and shorts. She is in a size 4 diaper and we started using Huggies Overnight diapers for bedtime. Andi has 5 teeth with a sixth trying to make an appearance.

Stats from Andi’s 15 month doctor’s appointment today:

weight: 21 pounds 13 ounces [30% percentile]

height: 31.25 inches [70% percentile]

head circumference: 18.5 inches [80% percentile]

pulse: 124 beats/minute respirations: 28 breaths/minute