Happy 18 months, Madeline!
August 20th, 2009Something tells me that I should have stuck with these monthly letters…it’s going to take a while to sum up what has happened in the past THREE months. I can’t believe that my little girl is a year and a half already. Wow!
Dear Madeline,
You are growing up so, so fast. The last three months have been amazing, and I’m going to have a bit of trouble putting it all into words. I love you more and more every day, which is a bit hard to believe. These toddler days are very interesting. You continue to discover the world and learn new things each day. You want to be independent, testing your boundaries and limits constantly, yet you still need us very much.
In my last letter, I mentioned that you were becoming more of a Daddy’s girl. In the recent months, there is absolutely no question. You are without a doubt a Daddy’s girl. I know you still love me very much, but these days nothing beats your Daddy! You are totally infatuated with him and ask about him constantly when he is not around. When I pick you up from daycare, usually one of the first things you say is “Dada?” It’s very sweet, though I do miss some of my extra hugs and kisses and snuggles from the Mommy days.
Lately, you have been giving kisses when asked, though often the conversation will go something like this: “Maddie, can you give Mommy a kiss?” “no no no no” “Maddie, do you want to give Daddy a kiss?” “uh huh” (at this point you walk over to your Daddy and offer your kissy lips) Once your Daddy has had his kiss, the chances are about 50/50 that you will give Mommy one, too. Often, you will repeat the process, going back and forth between Mommy and Daddy giving kisses. These are some of my favorite moments!
You continued to have a rough time with ear infections. When you didn’t have an infection, you seemed to have fluid in your ears. We were concerned about how this could affect your language development (not to mention all the pain and discomfort that you had from the ear infections). We decided to take you to a specialist who recommended tubes surgery, which we did just at the beginning of July. We were nervous about your surgery day, but you were great! You were a very brave little girl, though you were unhappy when we met you in the recovery room. You were much happier once we left the hospital! By the end of the day, you were literally dancing. Miraculously, you have not been sick since the surgery. Considering how many sick days that your Mommy and Daddy have taken to care for you this year alone, this is truly amazing. I do not feel like this is a coincidence!
You were experiencing one of your worst ear infections yet just a day or so before your first airplane ride. We were quite concerned about how the flight would go and made sure we were prepared with Motrin and prescription numbing drops. Despite our best efforts, the flight was not an enjoyable one for anybody. You were quite unhappy for more than half of the flight. I don’t know if your ears were bothering you, but I think you just didn’t like being confined to such a limited space. These days you are very busy and like to be able to move around freely. Your return flight was much smoother as you fell asleep shortly after take off and slept the majority of the flight. This was a relief for all of us!
Your first flight was to Cincinnati where we visited family and went to your first Major League Baseball game. You met your Grandpa Trout, Aunt Jessica, and Cousin Ava for the first time. We all went to lunch and then to the Children’s Museum which you thought was awesome. Your favorite parts of the museum were the ball room and the toddler slide. You were in heaven!
You loved the museum so much that we went back the next day with Grandma Shambro. We spent time with both of your Shambro grandparents the rest of the weekend. They love getting to spend time with you! They went with us to the baseball game which was not your favorite part. You preferred being in your stroller instead of the stands. It may be a while before we attempt another major sporting event!
We have visited your other grandparents in Davidson twice in the past three months. The second time, Mommy and Daddy were attending a wedding in Asheville. You spent the majority of the afternoon with your grandparents having the time of your life. You played at the park in the big sandbox for a good while and seemed to really enjoy yourself. We were informed that you didn’t ask about us even once! We were thrilled that you had such a good time as we had never been so far from you! We came back to your grandparents’ house late that night and were there for you when you woke up in the morning.
Speaking of sleep, you have made an immense amount of progress in this arena in the past 3 months. Wow, what a difference a few months can make! For one reason or another, we decided it was time to wean you from night nursing shortly after our cruise to Bermuda. In the beginning of the weaning process, I slept in a different room so that your all night diner would not be accessible. You cried a bit in the first few nights, but your Daddy was there to comfort you. I would join you and Daddy around the time that the sun started coming up, and you would nurse for the last two hours. After some time, we decided to wean you from the early morning nursings as well. Throughout this whole process, you started sleeping in your crib longer and longer each night. At first, we were amazed when you slept more than 6 hours in a row and then you started doing that consistently. This was a remarkable change as for almost a year and a half you rarely slept more than 3 or 4 hours at a time. For a while, you still joined us in the bed for the last few hours of the night. In the past month, you sleep from about 8:30pm until sometime between 7 and 8am (usually closer to 7am!). Rarely do you join us in our bed at all these days. I have to admit that I miss being close to you at night and your sweet nighttime cuddles, but I am also incredibly thankful and relieved (and better rested) now that you sleep through the night.
It wasn’t long after you nightweaned that you weaned entirely. You had been doing most of your nursing at night. One day, you didn’t ask to nurse at all. After that, I think maybe you asked once or twice but that was it. It seemed like a natural transition for us. You nursed for the last time shortly before your tubes surgery, which was a good thing considering you were not allowed to eat or drink after midnight before the surgery. It would have been very challenging had we still been nursing at night.
You had another very, very big change in your life in the past three months. Shortly after the Bermuda cruise, we found out that you’re going to be a big sister! You aren’t quite sure what that means, but you have a t-shirt that announces your impending sisterhood that has owls on it. You love that shirt as you like to point to the owls and say, “Owl! Owl! Owl!” It’s a good thing that you are so excited about owls because your new big girl bedding is going to have an owl theme. I think it’s going to be very cute. Considering that you just recently started sleeping through the night, we are a little nervous moving you into a big girl bed.
One thing that disturbs your sleeping habits is teething. You now have a grand total of 4 teeth – two on top, two on bottom. We have been thinking you have been teething in the past week based on some of your moods and the fact that you want to bite everything in sight. We have not seem the emergence of tooth #5 just yet. Being sick is another thing that can disturb your sleep, fortunately something we have not had to experience since your surgery! You still have trouble going to bed most nights and when it is time to nap, but otherwise you’re doing great.
Your language skills have really expanded in the past few months. You have a ton of words that you regularly say, though your favorites right now are “no” and “mine” often used in conjunction with one another. The other day, you had Mommy’s cellphone and I tried to retrieve it from you. You turned your whole body away from me to shield me from grabbing it and said, “no, no, no, Mama, mine!” You are constantly telling us what is yours by saying, “mine, mine, mine” over and over. I hear that you picked this up from daycare so that you can stand up for yourself.
When we talk to your North Carolina grandparents on the webcam, you ask to see the dog. You know to ask for the cat when you talk to your Kentucky grandparents. Smart girl. You know a variety of animals that you can identify all by yourself (sheep, dog, cat, owl, bird, duck, cow, pig, and probably others I’m forgetting). You still say “uh oh” quite often as well as other fun sounds like “wow,” “woah,” and “ooooh.” We say, “woah” when you take a little tumble, and we’ve heard you say it not only when you fall but when your classmates fall as well.
Another one of your favorite words is “car.” You seemed to be overjoyed to point out all the cars in a crowded parking lot or whenever you saw the NASCAR race on TV at Grandma and Grandpa’s (“car, car, car, car, car, car, car” while pointing frantically). Other words and phrases we have heard you say correctly and unprompted (most of them often): mama, dada, bye bye, baby, eye, toes, nose, cup, gone, all gone, more, milk, keys, ball, hop, shoes, socks, bib, hi, bapa (your NC grandpa), bottle, snack, water, up, go, hat, bubbles, glasses, rock (as in rocking chair), book, jack (classmate), laura (daycare teacher), wendy (daycare teacher), what’s that?, cracker, bye bye mama, kiss, this, bow (as in hair bow), help, my dada, hi dada, yay, jojo (one of your teddy bears) and probably many others I’m forgetting.
We gave you a baby doll and a baby doll stroller to prepare you for big sisterhood. I’m not sure how much it is preparing you, but you love the doll. You carry it around the house and push her in the stroller. We try to remind you to be gentle with the doll, but you often throw the baby on the floor or stuff her into a bag or something else that you should not do with your future baby sibling! We’re going to have to keep a close eye on you. For a while after you received your new doll, the first thing you would say when we got into the house was, “baba” (which is your word for baby).
You communicate and express yourself in many other ways. When we are eating a snack and you want to eat one, too, you often quickly put your hand to your mouth back and forth in an eating motion. It’s pretty clear what you want. When you are ready for a meal or snack, you go over to the high chair and say, “nack” (your word for snack). Every meal is a snack for you which is fitting considering how much you normally eat at each mealtime. We still struggle constantly to try to get you to eat. You’re quite picky. For example, you love pasta but you will not touch any type of pasta except rotini. You have taken quite a liking to eating cereal out of a bowl with a spoon complete with milk.
You love to listen to music, and you love to dance. Your favorite song for a long time was “Ants go marching” to which you would march around the living room, twirling and dancing. When you heard the “Muffin Man” song, you used to go to the kitchen looking for your favorite muffins. Very cute. You continue to enjoy music class at daycare. You seem to really like classic rock, which makes your parents happy!
I love when I ask you a question and either you don’t understand what I asked or honestly don’t know the answer to the question (or you’re thinking about it for a minute) and put your hands out, palms up in the “I don’t know” gesture. You do this in response to things like, “where’s your ball?” or also when we say “all gone” (as in, “where did the food go?”).
You like to keep a tidy house. Your daddy is quite proud of you for this. When you see clothing on the floor, you often pick it up and put it in the laundry hamper. When you see trash, especially when we tell you that it is trash, you scamper off to the trash can to throw it away. In the morning, Daddy usually brings you to our bedroom to say good morning and you slide off the bed and pitter patter on a mission to your high chair. You are Mommy’s girl when it comes to breakfast food! You love your breakfast. On the way to the high chair, if the gate is open, you close it. If the pantry or any other doors are open, you close them. These are very good habits, and we hope you keep them up! You also like to clean – you enjoy wiping the table with a towel or washcloth and trying to sweep the floor with the broom.
You love playing with blocks and Legos and are getting pretty good at putting them together. You’re getting really good at your animal puzzle. We recently got you a few other puzzles to try. Not only are you good at putting together the pieces, you are also good at identifying the animals. Your new puzzles have numbers, shapes, and the alphabet. We’ll see if you like those, too. Not that long ago, you would get frustrated and upset when the pieces wouldn’t go into place. Now it seems like we can turn our back for less than a minute, and you have all the pieces in place. You like to say, “Yay!” and clap when you complete the last piece (and also when you put the duck into the puzzle for some reason). You love hugging your baby and stuffed animals, and you have started pretend play where you make animals walk or your baby dance. You have been learning this by imitating others.
Your latest obsession is hair bows. They are so cute on you, but you get so upset sometimes when you don’t have one! You have even woke up in the middle of the night crying, “bow, bow, bow.” This week, you have been getting upset about your lack of hair bows when Daddy gets you into your jammies and ready for bed. In addition to hair bows, you seem to enjoy dresses. The other day we picked out a dress for you to wear and put it on the bed. You pointed to it and giggled when we put it over your head. I guess you may be a little bit of a girly girl, but we’ll see!
You had another big event just last weekend. You had your first sleepover at a friend’s house, and you spent your first night away from Daddy. We had a Mommy/daughter sleepover at your best buddy Keira’s house. I think that you really enjoyed it! You and Keira are adorable together (and your mommies are thrilled that you have so much fun playing with each other).
Since it’s summertime, we have done a little swimming. I wish we could do more, but it’s hard to find the time (and the pool). We did sign you up for more swimming lessons in the fall, so hopefully you will enjoy that. It will be interesting to see how you react to swimming lessons this time around, about a full year after your last lessons.
You’re a sweet baby girl and are an absolute joy to be around. We have some exciting things on our horizon – visits from grandparents, another cruise, and a few other trips. I’m looking forward to seeing what the next months hold for you! We love you very, very much.
Love,
Mommy
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