Monday, August 29, 2011

Jade grows up- 16 months

I know I say this every month, but I swear things just keep getting more and more fun. Jade is learning so much every day and while it's exhausting to keep up with her, it's fascinating as well and I can't think of anything I'd rather do every day.

She is talking a little bit more, but still only when she wants to and she hasn't said some words she was saying last month in weeks. I figure they still count ;) 'Baby' is definitely her favorite word/sign and she walks around saying it all the time. Any time we see a baby when we're out and about she points and says "baby" and does the sign. It's also probably her most recognizable word. Most things she says sound like "da" or "ba" but "baby" really sounds like "baby". I find it impressive.


She uses a sign for almost everything she says, so that helps me to know what she's saying. Some of her favorite signs (other than baby) are "bird", "ball", "shoes", and "car".

We've started to enter "tantrum" phase. I knew it was coming, I just didn't want to think about it :) She's still great 99% of the time and in comparison to some of the tantrums I've seen, what we're dealing with is nothing. But I do know that I need to work on my disciplining skills because at the moment nothing I'm doing is working. So far, I've read The Strong Willed Child and The Happiest Toddler on the Block. I might post more on the books later, but if anyone has any recommendations for other things to read, feel free to let me know :)


She is finally officially only taking one nap. We have a pretty good routine down and as long as I stick to that, we're good to go and she naps for about 2 hours in the afternoon. I'm loving having my mornings free to do stuff, although sometimes it's a pain to be home by 11:30 to do lunch and get her to sleep in time.

She is still incredibly picky. Some days she goes to bed and I'm not convinced she ingested any solid food other than fruit and animal crackers the entire day.

She loves tight places. She consistently takes everything out of her basket in the family room and sits in it herself. Or moves the pots and pans around so she can fit in the kitchen cabinet. She also likes to force herself into Belle's bed (along with Belle), but Belle doesn't like that too terribly much and generally moves.


She goes the ChildWatch at the Y pretty much every day, and always does very well. I watch her sometimes and she is all over the place- checking out the toys and playing with new things. Unfortunately, she doesn't actually play with the other kids, but I figure that will come with time. She also loves to go to the playground, but is sill just all over the place and rarely focuses long enough to figure out how to do anything.

She has started to "help" me do things pretty frequently, which is so sweet. I can ask her to go get me things (her shoes, milk, blanky, etc) and sometimes she actually does it. She also loves to load/unload the dishwasher.


She has become incredibly opinionated over what books we read to her. Every night we go through every book in the basket in her room to try to find one that she approves of. It's weird, because she loves for me to read "There's a Wocket in my Pocket' but won't let Chuck read it to her. And some nights, she wants to read a certain book and the next night she just keeps pushing it away. But she is playing with books on her own more now, which of course makes the book worm in me very happy.

We have lots of new things to come in the coming month- we're signed up for story time at the library, MOPS and Mother's Morning Out. I think it'll be fun to add a little variety to our routine, although I'll admit that I'm a little nervous about MMO. She's been watched by other people for that long before, but never outside of our house if I'm not in the same building, if that makes any sense. But I know that it'll be good for both of us!

It's been such a joy to watch her grow up this month and I'm excited to see what next month brings!

*Just realized every picture in this post is from my phone. Pathetic. I will take more pictures with my actual camera next month. Really. Promise.

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

The picture of Jade in the basket looks very much Chuck-like. Do you have the People House book?

Anonymous said...

I must say I do love the hair bow!!