Leah 17 Months Old

We are just a month away from Leah going to nursery at church! We have had a fun month (with NO real traveling) and Leah continues to learn new, exciting things.

Leah currently weighs 24 pounds and is 33 inches tall. She is still wearing size three diapers (which are starting to get snug). She wears mostly 12-18 month clothes and size 4-5 shoes.

Leah's communication has made progress, even though she isn't really saying any new words regularly. She has become more verbal lately by starting to babble more and use nonsensical words. She uses "bye, bye!" frequently - after she uses the potty and is flushing it, whenever we're leaving somewhere, if she's going to bed, and she even uses it to let me know that she WANTS to leave somewhere. She understands a lot more when I am speaking to her. She listens to commands like, "Get a diaper" or "Lift your arms up." One thing that she communicates FREQUENTLY is her desire to go outside. She goes and finds my shoes or daddy's shows or her own and brings them to you. As soon as we get our shoes on, she runs to the door and holds on the knob until you open it.

Needless to say, we spent A LOT of time outside this last month. Leah loves going to different playgrounds in the area. She is fearless when it comes to climbing up really tall ladders, going across treacherous bridges, and going down twisty slides. She really loves holding onto bars and hanging there. She is constantly pointing at the monkey bars at the playground in our neighborhood. She likes to swing on the big swings with and without Mommy and she also discovered swinging on her belly. She's still not tall enough to get on any of the swings on her own though.

When we aren't at a playground, she loves to just walk around (especially on Daddy's shoulders) and enjoy nature. She loves picking flowers, digging in the dirt/mulch, playing in the water hose, and just going on simple walks. Every time we go into the garage, she climbs into her red wagon and points to the handle. Recently, a neighbor gave us a water table that she has had a blast with. She uses it every day that it is warm enough. Her fascination with wheels has also continued and she has been known to climb on her friends' bicycles and tricycles. She climbed on her 5 year old neighbor's bicycle (without any help) and tried to ride off with it. Luckily her feet didn't reach the pedals! 

It doesn't matter rain or shine, Leah can't resist being outdoors. One day it was pouring down rain and I decided to open the front door to let her watch the storm. She walked right out the door on her own and was immediately drenched, so I decided to let her play in the area in front of our house since there is no danger of cars. She was content there for a while until she decided that she wanted to go to the playground in the center of the neighborhood. She took off running up the hill and out of my sight during a particularly heavy downpour. I had to run and catch her becoming drenched myself. As soon as she saw me after her, she started giggling and running even faster! On a different day, I was able to keep her inside for a pretty major downpour only to have her soak herself later in the puddles. I'm not really sure what we're going to do this winter!

We also were able to go on lots of "field trips" with our different play groups this last month. We made a visit to Greenbrier State Park where Leah enjoyed playing in the sand at their lake beach and getting in the water a little bit. We also got to visit a children's science museum. Even though it was inside, Leah still had a good time! With the school year starting up again, Library programs are starting again, so we have registered for classes on Tuesdays and Thursdays and will be attending some others on Mondays and Fridays to keep busy. Leah loves being around other children!

All of this play has led to many successful nap times, but unfortunately about halfway though the month Leah transitioned to ONE nap a day. Booo! :( She's been napping from around noon to 3pm. She still is nursing when she wakes up in the morning, before her nap, and before bed. We cut the after nap nursing when I started doing after school care for some kids in my neighborhood.



At the beginning of this month, we were given an art easel by a different neighbor. Prior to the easel, Leah had been barely showing a budding interest toward writing utensils. Now, I need to make sure that they are all put up somewhere where she can't get them. I've already cleaned crayon out of the carpet after some mishaps decorating a large box. Chalk is a good way to start because it easily comes off of everything and I have been able to teach her not to draw on furniture or the walls without having too much of a clean up. Grandma H. gave us some really great sidewalk chalk which we have used to decorate the driveway on several occasions. She only makes little marks and sometimes circles and spirals, but she really enjoys it.

Leah's fine motor skills are continuing to develop. She now can use a fork pretty well to stab her food and then get those stabbed pieces into her mouth. Sometimes she will INSIST on feeding herself and it has turned out pretty messy on several occasions when she tries to feed herself yogurt or applesauce with a spoon.

She is starting to understand the concepts of matching when it comes to putting pieces in her shape sorter or putting pieces where they go in a puzzle. She is progressing fine motor to place the puzzle piece in it's place, but most of the time she just places the pieces close to where they go. In this clip, Leah completely surprised me by putting BOTH pieces completely in their places. She wasn't doing that the day before!

Leah has always loved taking things OUT, but recently she has started to put things away too. This morning when I got her out of the crib, she usually wants to nurse immediately, but she pointed at the floor and had me put her down. She walked around her room picking up her stuffed animals (that she had thrown out of her crib) and tossed them back into her crib. She found a Tupperware container on the floor in the laundry room that she had put there recently while destroying my Tupperware drawer. She picked it up, walked over to the drawer, opened it up, placed container correctly in the drawer, and then closed it. My heart did quite the happy dance! I can't wait until she can clean up her own messes!!!

During bath time each night, Leah has started to figure out our routine. Every night she starts by playing with her bath toys. When she is ready to be cleaned she points to her soap and with some prompting will lay down to get her hair wet. She always asks for a squirt of soap on her hand and rubs it on her body. The last couple of nights she has decided that she can clean Mommy with the soap and rubs Mommy's face. She loves the bath bubble machine that her Grandma and Grandpa H. got for her this last Christmas. She turns it on and then off again and pops all of the bubbles in between.

As part of our nightly routine I have always attempted to read Leah a story of two to try to calm her down, but she is at her craziest when she is tired. Most nights, "reading" to her still consists of her running in circles around her room or pulling all of the books off her shelf while I read a story or two or three in the rocking chair. Her most recent thing has been to grab several of the books and "hide" behind the rocking chair and look through the pictures while I read. Leah also starting jumping during this time. We were in her room preparing for bedtime and she just started jumping in the air and landing on her diaper. She now will climb on the couch or on our bed to do the same. It looks like it should hurt, but she thinks it is the best.

Luckily the reading is starting to sink in even if she isn't sitting to listen to the books. One time during the day, I was letting her roam the house while I watched an episode of Downton Abby. It suddenly became quiet, so I ran upstairs to find her. To me absolute surprise, she had climbed up in her rocking chair and was "reading" a book to herself. The best part was that she was mimicking voice sounds and different inflections as she read.

Each night, Doug and I usually watch an episode of Star Trek. Leah dances every time to the opening and closing sequence. It doesn't matter what she is doing or where she is in the house; she will stop and run to the tv and start dancing. She's already taken some of my best moves. ;-)

Leah guilty pleasure right now is climbing up on the table. She CONSTANTLY wants to be up there and I feel like I am fighting a losing battle. I will take her down and she just climbs right up again. Sometimes if she doesn't finish her dinner, we'll leave it there (I'm not preparing anything special!) and she'll sneak up on the table and finish her dinner. Other times, she up there for pure fun. She finds standing on the table thrilling. She's even fallen off the table once in an (unsuccessful) attempt to climb into her seat. Nothing can dissuade this child!

I love this little girl with all of my heart. I am grateful that I get to spend all day every day with her as a stay-at-home mom.

Leah 16 Months Old

We are enjoying being back home from all of our recent travel. It's nice to get back to some sort of schedule. :-)

Leah currently weighs 22 1/2 pounds and is 33 inches tall. She is wearing size 3 diapers, size 12-18 month clothes, and size 4-5 shoes.

Leah continues to make strides in her communication. One thing that I have noticed the most in the last month is her ability to understand what is said to her. You can actually ask her to do things without getting blank stares! If I ask her to get her shoes so that we can go outside, she runs to find her shoes, brings them to me, and then sits in my lap waiting for me to put them on. She still tries a lot of words in whispers, but she hasn't really regularly started saying any new words since last month. She does have the "kitty sound" down pretty well though.

Leah's gross motor skills continue to be a little ahead of the game. She is running everywhere and climbing on everything. She can now walk UP the slide at the playground and climb the tricky "ladder-like" way to the top platform. I have to keep an eye on her to make sure that she doesn't climb up on the dinner table. It makes it especially easy when I forget to push in my chair.

Leah's favorite game right now involves putting things inside something and then taking them out again. This is somewhat helpful when moving the laundry over (except I have to close the dryer quickly or she'll take it all out again.) She also hands dishes to us while Daddy and I are emptying the dishwasher. She has learned how to use zippers, so now she can get into her snack bag in which she like to take all of the snacks and then return them. She also like to play this "game" in my Tupperware drawer. Unfortunately, there is a certain way that they need to be put for them to all fit back inside.

Leah continues to show progress in her fine motor development. She is able to stab food and get it into her mouth with somewhat good accuracy. She is showing more and more interest in feeding herself with silverware and she is starting to want to eat a little cleaner. She still has a far way to go though! When we got back from Utah, I decided to see how she would do with her shape sorter. She surprised me and was able to get the circle in pretty quickly. She doesn't quite have the matching down 100%, but she can put them in if I point to the correct place.

This month, Leah and I spent a little over a week in Ireland for Auntie Kate's wedding. (Daddy had to work. Boo!) The flight TO Ireland went really well. (Can't exactly say the same for the flight back... ) We did a lot of sightseeing while we were there and Leah was pretty content to just hang out in her backpack carrier and have Mommy carry her everywhere. The only time she didn't really like was the time in the car driving to different places. I think she prefers the right side of the road like Mommy and was quite possibly picking up some of the stress and fear that was radiating from me just about the whole time we were in the car. The time difference in Ireland was 5 hours ahead of EST, so Leah had a little difficulty in the mornings during the first part of the trip.

We got to Ireland at about 10am after a red-eye flight and spent the day settling into the rental house and going grocery shopping. The rental house (we shared with Grandma and Grandpa H. and Aunt Bekah and uncle Jon) was really nice and out in the country. Leah enjoyed running around the property and playing with the toys that the property manager provided. 

Ireland's "Walmart equivalent" is called Tesco's... Except that the food is fresh (brown LOCAL eggs!) and they don't have food dyes and such in their foods. We started out there, but shopping was taking a while with all of the unfamiliar food and Leah had a bit of a freak out in the grocery store that involved her being dragged a few feet on her "Leah leash" in order to get her out the the way of a shopping cart that was moving down the aisle. Aunt Bekah was not too happy at Mommy for that... So anyway, I went ahead and took Leah to a playground that was luckily just across the street. Leah had a ton of fun at the playground and Mommy had a blast listening to the thick Irish accents of all the little kids!

Our second day in Ireland, we were busy sightseeing along the coast of Northern Ireland. We visited the ruins of a castle named Dunluce that was directly on the coast. The occupants decided to move once their kitchen with several of their servants plummeted into the ocean. The castle dated back to the 1600's and Leah liked climbing over the ruins and saying, "Wow!" It was actually pretty chilly and windy along the coast, but I had not packed a jacket for Leah (upon the suggestion of my dear sister Kate who said that it was "hot.") The cold didn't seem to bother Leah too much, but we wrapped her in her blanket whenever she was in the carrier.

The next place we went to was probably my favorite in Ireland, Giant's Causeway. This AMAZING rock formation was breathtaking. Leah was pretty content to stay in the carrier on the hike down to the rocks, but wanted to get out and explore once we got to the actual rocks. Auntie Kate and Grandma H. helped her navigate the tricky terrain. She also had some fun picking any flowers or other vegetation that she could find. We put her back in the backpack carrier for the hike back up to the visitor center and she quickly decided to get in her morning nap. She slept for about an hour and was the talk of all of the tourists walking by us.

We jumped in the car once again to head to our next destination, the Carrick-a-Rede Rope Bridge, that led to a neat little island on the coast. Leah seemed to have no issue at all with the heights or the wobbly nature of the bridge... Mommy did not feel the same way.

The next day, we toured the city of Belfast. Our first stop was the Titanic museum/exhibit. I can imagine it would be very interesting for an adult or child that could read, but Leah was more interested in running around and touching everything she could get her hands on. When she got tired, she still refused to get in the stroller, and decided that the best place to take a rest would be directly on the floor. (In case you forgot I was traveling with a toddler...)

The next place we toured was Belfast castle which towered over the whole city. We ate lunch at a nice restaurant in the basement of the castle, but Leah and I spent the majority of our time exploring the beautiful grounds. (People were in the restaurant sipping tea and eating little decorated biscuits... Definitely not a place for a one year old!) There were several cats "hidden" throughout the gardens. Leah liked finding them and giving them kisses. She also spent her time insisting that she walk up and down stairs the "big girl" way.

After the castle we did a bus tour and heard the story of the Peace Wall that still separates the Protestant and Catholic portions of the city of Belfast. Mommy found the history quite interesting, but Leah decided that this would be a good time to get her nap in for the day. 

The next day we headed out to the Marble Arch Caves and waterfall. We got there about an hour before our tour started and disaster struck. Leah had a major diaper blowout and I didn't have a change of clothes! Luckily there was a family restroom with a sink, a changing table, and an air dryer where I spent about 20 minutes changing Leah and then cleaning and drying her pants (which were luckily a quick dry material). The shirt was a loss, so we ended up getting a new one at the gift shop that was a little big, but it worked! Everything was cleaned, dried, and ready to go just as our tour was headed out. Whew! The caves were amazing. We actually started the tour with an underground boat ride. Leah was great and just hung out in her backpack carrier enjoying the sites and eating the Fruit Loops that Grandpa H. fed to her throughout the tour.

After the underground cave tour, we hiked to a waterfall above the cave. Everything was green and beautiful! (Not quite like a Hawaii waterfall, but still a nice hike!)

The next few days were spent preparing for wedding festivities. Leah was to be the flower girl and walk hand-in-hand down the aisle with me. She wasn't really cooperative for the professional pictures beforehand unfortunately, but she did walk down the aisle without freaking out or me having to carry her. We were locked in a small room for a time while the guests took their seats. Leah wanted no part of that room and wanted to break out and see the harpist that she was hearing. We were the first out when the door opened. She walked nice and slowly down the aisle examining everything and everyone. It was really the best case scenario that I had played in my head. Unfortunately though, old castles are very echoey, so we did not get to stay through the whole ceremony.

After some more professional pictures which she was slightly better for, we headed over to the reception area. Everything was beautiful and the dinner was HUGE and delicious! Leah had a bit of a breakdown around 8pm or so and slept for about 45 minutes on my chest. She woke up a lot less grumpy and everyone danced around the dance floor including the beautiful bride Auntie Kate. We stayed until 11pm, so it was a LOOOONG day for Leah (7am-11pm)!

We had an absolute blast in Ireland and are so glad Kate and Steven were such excellent tour guides. Even if Leah doesn't remember the trip, I hope that she will enjoy the stories from it. 

I love my Leah so much! I am enjoying her more and more each day as she grows and learns new things. I'm having more fun being a mom every day!