Blog | 18 Months
Our little munchkin is getting bigger and bigger - clearly all our attempts to slow her down are not working! I have no idea how big she actually is, but will find out in a couple of weeks when we go to her 18-month checkup. I’ll post that info then.
I took the above picture today when we ventured out to get a smoothie. We are all recovering from the flu (Brianna was the last to get it) so we haven’t been out hardly at all since we returned from vacation. So far, I would say Brianna got the lightest version of it out of the three of us, with Jason getting the worst. While she has had a high fever for a couple of days, she has still been her usual cheerful self, and she is eating well (as long as the food we give her consists of applesauce and/or smoothies). She has also eaten other things, but those are her favorite “sick” foods. It was a miserable flu (oink, oink), but all things considered, I think we fared o.k.
Brianna is a chatterbox! I can’t imagine where she gets that from… She is putting 3 and 4 word phrases together all the time. More milk please. More up Mommy please. No chocolate Mommy (I kid you not - she actually said that to me when I offered her my chocolate shake in place of her Daddy’s vanilla). She will attempt to repeat pretty much anything you ask her to repeat, and is really good at saying please and thank you (this last one is a fairly recent development). Some words are crystal clear - milk, mommy, daddy, apple, baby, nose, hat, night-night, etc. Other words require a translator - water (sounds like lellow), thank you (sounds like ga-gu), chocolate (sounds like chakit), gators (sounds like goo-goo), etc. We are also officially in the watch what you say phase. I dropped something the other day and said “crap,” which was cheerfully and clearly repeated by my darling daughter - smile and everything!
She is getting more adventurous as she becomes more comfortable with things around her. She loves the slides and swings and general playground equipment, but prefers the stuff at the playgrounds she is familiar with. She also has a few “space” issues - she does not like to be crowded and she does not like it when people (adults, kids, and anything in between) approach her too quickly. For the most part, however, she now just stands very still when this happens, instead of getting very fidgety and fussy. She loves her school buddies (bubbies) and can even say some of their names (Hawk, Max). Biting incidents aside (one where she was the bitee and one where she was the biter), they seem to really like her too. Jason has even heard Hawk try to say her name when she arrives (pretty impressive for an 18-month old if you ask me). So, while she is still very shy with playground kids, grandparents, and family friends, she loves her school “bubbies” and teachers.
We are beginning to transition her to a “real” food schedule. Meaning, we are beginning to feed her what we eat. I suspect this will take several months to fully put in place, but our goal is to teach her to try new things and that we will all be eating the same thing as a family (no member-specific menus).
She is entering the “help” phase as well - it is adorable to see. She wants to help load the dishwasher and put things away. I hope this phase lasts for, oh, 18+ years!!
