15 months!

The start of toddlerhood has proven to be challenging, hilarious, and an ever-changing adventure.

First of all, I took Mollie in for her well-check and those dreaded vaccinations. I was quite surprised by her stats! She weighs 22 lbs 12 oz and is 30 in. tall, which surprised me. If I were to guess by the amount of time Mollie spends eating these days, the growth would have been much much more! But it turns out she's remained at about the 20-25th percentile for height and weight! Her head is another story, though...it's circumference is now 49 cm, which is almost in the 90th percentile! She's taken a little jump in that area...but that just means her little brain is growing and she must have more room to store all those words she's been learning!

One of the things our doctor checked for was to see if she was using 2-6 words on a regular basis...this girl says more like 25 words on a regular basis and repeats many more!! Her vocabulary really is taking off and it's obvious that she understands much more than she can communicate. We're working hard with her right now to start utilizing some more key words (either through signing or speaking) to help ease some frustration..."help" and "i'm tired" would be helpful for starters...it will hopefully help with some of her whininess.

The doctor was quite surprised at how much Mollie still sleeps! She sleeps 12-13 hours each night, and takes either 1 three hour nap or 2 two-hour naps each day (or at least needs that much...you can DEFINITELY tell when she hasn't had a good nap). Evidently most kids don't sleep that much?? Who knows. I'm not complaining; nap time is our favorite part of the day :o)

At her appointment we were discussing teething...he said that teething shouldn't disrupt her day too much, so don't worry about it very much; and I read somewhere else that teething pains should only last about a week or two. WHAT!? This kid has been cutting her molars for at least two months (with MAJOR disruption might I add), got maybe a week or two to rest, and has now started on her eye teeth. This results in major grumpiness, screaming, exhaustion from the screaming, and soaking herself in drool. "Teething Mollie" is nowhere near our sweet little, well behaved, easy going "Normal Mollie". I don't like this part of toddlerhood.

Another interesting aspect of toddlerhood are Mollie's changing preferences and heightened sensitivity. She's obviously always been a great eater, with a few exceptions. I'm now finding that one day she'll want something, and the next day refuse. I've seen her refuse something because it was in a different container than the day before. Or yesterday, she didn't want to be fed, she wanted to feed herself and refused to eat unless she could hold the spoon. Geeze! Also, lately she's been easily startled by a few things that she's seen or heard a hundred times and it suddenly she doesn't care for it. For example...there is a lady (who happens to be in a motorized wheelchair) that we see almost every day at the gym. She's been coming the entire time we've been going. Nothing new. However, just this week Mollie's decided that the wheelchair TERRIFIES her and bursts out in tears every time we see her. Not a fun situation. Also, she's suddenly decided she does NOT like me holding other kids, even though she's seen me do it everyday working at the gym. Also, she does NOT like to sleep anywhere except for her own bed, even though she's had numerous successful experiences sleeping in other places throughout her little life. Her little world is just-a-changin' and mine is just-a-goin-crazy!!

On top of all that, we're fighting a very painful diaper rash today. You can imagine the fun that brings. Yikes.

On the flip side, the heightened sensitivity has led to her being VERY excited about some things! Like hearing the "Yo Gabba Gabba" theme song come on (that show wierds me out by the way), seeing her Daddy drive up, or getting to play with her friend Natalie! Hopefully we'll be seeing more of the fun aspects of being a toddler and less of the craziness.

We would appreciate prayers for patience and guidance in the meantime :o)