Blog | 16 Months
Brianna is already 16 months old and she is definitely a full-on toddler! Her speech is coming along great. She makes all kinds of animal sounds on request – sheep (aaahhh), duck (cack-cack), chicken (cuh-cuh), cow (moooooo), cat (neow), and goose (a very gutteral anh-anh). New words include bubbles, the animal sounds, peas, boo-boo (blueberries), coo-coo (cookie), and poppa, while already established words are getting clearer (e.g., book, bink, cat). I think she has started saying thank you when prompted, but I need a few more examples to be sure. She is definitely having entire conversations with herself (and occasionally us), but we really don’t know what all she is saying). Ball, mama (or mommy), daddy, and no are still her favorite words.
She loves going to the pool and is getting quite comfortable standing in the shallow end of the baby pool. She will even tip her head over and try to blow bubbles in the water if you prompt her. She is not very good at it yet, but she is getting there, and more importantly, she is comfortable doing it. If you hold her up, she will also kick her legs, and she loves to splash people. We opted to wait and do lessons later this year or maybe next year. For now, we are just getting her used to being near and in the water.
We have not really introduced many new foods recently, and plan to get moving on that again. So far, she is still a good eater. She loved the lemon pound cake her great-Grandma made during their visit, and she loves her cookies (some of which are actually sweetish breadsticks with veggie/fruit added to them). She loves canned peas and canned carrots, but still is not terribly interested in fresh or frozen versions of those same veggies (cooked, of course). Lima beans and broccoli continue to be among her least favorite foods.
While she is still an angel most of the time, she is really starting to exhibit some willful behavior, particularly when she is tired. We have seen a few fits recently, but nothing major, and she generally gives it up once she realizes she is not getting the attention (or item) she wanted. Most outbursts involve having to get her diaper changed, not getting to go down the stairs by herself, not getting to go outside, and/or not getting to play with bubbles. We did have one incident in school last week – she bit one of the other kids! Apparently, one kid was bugging her, but eventually left her alone. Then another kid came along and started bugging her, and she demonstrated her displeasure with her teeth. We were quite surprised – I would have thought she would have kicked or hit since that is what she does at home when she is frustrated. Thankfully, that is the only biting incident so far.
She is still shy, but she is thankfully getting over some of the separation anxiety she exhibited the past few months. Yay! I hope to get a picture of her standing in front of her height measuring giraffe soon. So far, she has not been terribly interested in standing still long enough for me to take the picture. In the mean time, here are a few pictures from the past week or so. In the first, she is saying goodbye to Ms. Susan, her Kindermusik teacher on the last day of class. The next picture illustrates her recent love of sunglasses. After that, I put in a couple of pictures from our last trip to the pool. She HAD to carry the beach ball herself. All the way there and all the way back!! Lastly, while Jason and I had a date night this past weekend, Nana, Poppa, and Tia stayed with Brianna (they came to visit this past weekend to celebrate the guys’ birthdays). As you can see, Brianna is telling Nanna a very funny story!
