18 Months

Phoebe turned 18 months on Sunday.  A year and a half...crazy.  I'm going to apologize now because I just re-read this and it is somewhat of a random stream of consciousness.  Oh well, this is what I think about my baby big girl and remember about the past month.

She still loves to swing and blow bubbles.  Although she looks slightly terrified in the picture, she really does love going down slides- even big ones.

This past month can be characterized mainly by snotty noses, saline spray, and a bulb syringe.  She never once had a fever, but we've had a lot of runny noses this past month.  Sometimes it is hard to believe how much snot can come out of such a little person.  Phoebe has gotten four more teeth this  month- all of her canies (cuspids).  So hopefully we will be done with teething for awhile now.  I think this might have contributed to all her congestion as well.
I have no idea how much she weighs etc.  I'm guessing somewhere between 19 and 20 lbs-  still below the growth chart I am certain.  We'll go to the doctor for her 18 month appointment closer to the end of the month.  I did make an appointment with a new pediatrician, since I had finally thrown in the towel with our last one.  Thanks for all your suggestions and advice.  Hopefully we will have better luck this time.  Right now I'm in the process of gathering all her medical records to deliver to the new doctor.  Of course you can't get everything from your pediatrician- why would the medical community make things so easy?  You have to go to each individual specialist for records. So that means I have now contacted and signed medical releases from 6 different medical doctors/facilities.  Fabulous. We successfully and easily made the transition to a big girl bed about 3 weeks ago.  Chris parents' offered us his old bunk beds, and we graciously accepted.  Someday Phoebe will move to the top bunk and share the bottom with her little brother or sister, but until then I will awkwardly bend down around my pregnant belly to put her in the bottom bunk over the 30 year old wooden rails.  This is going to kill my back sooner rather than later.  I only mis-judged the distance once and banged her head into the bottom of the top bunk- whoops.

Basically we took the queen size guest bed out of the room and replaced it with the bunk beds.  The crib is still in the same room.  She shows no interest at all in the crib anymore. I have dreams of white furniture in a baby/toddler girl's room someday, but this is working great for now. Phoebe sleeps well at night and naps once in the afternoon, typically for an hour and a half.   She still sleeps with her paci.  I guess this is ok??  I have no idea, but between moving to a big girl bed, attemping potty training, and the new baby this is one battle I have no desire to fight.  She only gets it in the bed.  She still is not a good eater and I'm not going to harp on that anymore.  I'm going to feed her yogurt puree baby food and Trader Joe Organic O's for her until she's five.

I really can't remember why I did this now, but I started putting Phoebe on the potty several weeks ago.  I had no expectations, really.  But she's done great.  I mean she likes sitting on the potty and probably goes to the potty {on the potty} an average of twice/day.  But I really don't know where to go from here.  She likes the potty.  She knows she gets a treat if she pees or poops on the potty.  On occasion she has gone to the potty saying "potty" and when I put her on it she will pee or poop.  She also has started to tell me when she has pooped, but this is certainly not every time.  

You're going to think I'm crazy- and I am.  But I started reading about the 3 day potty training "boot-camp" where you hunker down, stay home for 3 days, with a naked kid and try to teach them to use the potty.  Really, Phoebe is probably a bit young for this.  But I decided to give it a try.  Why?  I don't know- I'm crazy.  So today was day #1.  I didn't do the completely naked thing- I used training pants.  I needed to contain the mess somehow.  Chris reminded me that we did this with a puppy about a year ago this can't be too much different.  Let me tell you- it was a little different.  Anyhow, it was a messy day- which is fine.  I expected it to be.  Again I don't really have any expectations for these 3 days I just figured I try it now or we wait till after the baby is born- so another 3 months  (This was the only 3 days in a row where I didn't have anything planned and could actually stay home all day with her before the baby gets here)  I'm going to stick it out for 2 more days and we'll see what happens.  Not having 2 in diapers would be amazing...  It hasn't been frustrating because I don't have any expectations, but it is quite a bit of work.  (Frustration is the result of unmet expectations....  That's our motto anyhow.) Any potty training advice?  Do I just keep putting her on the potty when it is convenient for me/I have time and hope she gets it?  Or do I just stop and wait until she is a little older?
She loves, loves, loves her baby dolls.  They do EVERYTHING she does: eat with a spoon, sit in her booster seat, go for rides in the stroller, take baths, sit on/in (we might have had a couple dunking incidents...) the toilet.  She hugs, kisses, and loves on them.  Hopefully this is a good sign??  But she has also been pretty clingy this past month.  She wants to be held or in our laps A LOT.  She is a cuddle-er for sure and I think it will be pretty traumatic when there is another baby spending so much time in mommy and daddy's arms.

Phoebe loves kissing my belly and pointing to "mommy's baby"   She also LOVES to talk on the phone.  She frequently walks around with a toy phone babbling away and ALWAYS wants to hold the real phone and talk when I am trying to use it...

She is quite the talker and readily points out objects and foods that she knows.  She is also starting to learn to count.  She counts to four relatively well.  Our speech therapist has been very impressed with her progress.  Phoebe is even started to say some high frequency sounds like "t" and "sh" which is great because that means she is able to hear and "parrot" those sounds despite her hearing loss.
She is still a social butterfly and tends to command the attention of other kids in the church nursery and loves sharing her toys not only with the RUF students but also with random people in doctor's waiting rooms and other mom's in her music class.  She says hi to everyone in the grocery store and easily makes friends wherever we take her.
Phoebe has started to get attached to random objects this past month  such as her toothbrush, spoons, and a container of Vick's vapor rub, etc.  She will get ahold of one of these items and will carry it around with her ALL day and then even fall asleep with it.  I think its weird, but whatever.  

That's all I got.  I love my big girl more than I could have ever imagined.  She brings us so much joy and excitement.  I love watching her learn and discover new things.  Here's to another great month!