15 Months

Here we are at fifteen months! These last five or so days have seemed pretty long. Natalie is finally starting to get better though.

Poor girl was in the worst condition I've ever seen her. She had a slight fever, kept waking up crying, lost her appetite almost all together and wouldn't eat, and just all around didn't feel well. Thankfully she would drink her bottles and wet diapers. Day four she developed a rash (Sunday) so I called the doctor. They said it was nothing to worry about. We looked on Google and are pretty sure she had/is still getting over Roseola .

Here's what she's been up to:

-She's learning shapes and starting to identify certain, more distinct one's like star, heart, and triangle. (She's actually know star and heart for awhile now.) She still gets confused with one's like oval vs. circle or rectangle vs. square.

-She's gotten really good at putting the pieces of a simple animal puzzle she has where they belong.

-Her vocabulary hasn't expanded too much. You can ask her to say just about any word and she'll make a sound that starts with the right letter but mostly she's not interest in talking much. She also seems to shorten all the words she knows. She went from saying "apple" to now just "app" or "i cue" (ice cube) to just "i". Whateves. No big d, that's what all the cool kids do nowadays.

-She doesn't talk much, but she communicates and understand things very well. I guess she's content getting by by just pointing and squeaking and having us interpret what she wants.

-She seems really coordinated for her age, something she definitely didn't get from me. At the playground she goes down all the slides, big and small, all by herself. I put her on the slide, say, "Wait for Mommy!" and she smiles at me and puts her finger up (I do this gesture to her when I tell her to wait) and before I get to the bottom to catch her she is going down full speed. I used to have to coax her into going down, now she is just a little daredevil.

-Not long ago we were at the park, her on my lap in the swings and I was singing to her (I only do this when no one else is around) and she had the sweetest look on her face. I got to the point in the song where I say, "So baby kiss me!"  and she leaned forward and parted her lips. The rest of the song she watched my face as if she were waiting for another kiss. That moment stuck out in my head and I loved it.

-She damn near refused the thermometer when she was sick (it's one you put against the forehead) but when she saw it she would pick it up, press the button and hold it the wrong way against her head. I said, "Natalie, can you take Mommy's temperature?" and sure enough she walked over to me and put it against my forehead. It's amazing how much they learn and understand.

-I know a lot of doctors recommend getting babies off bottles by a year, but I have no intention of stopping anytime soon. She still wakes up throughout the night and that's what puts her back to sleep/what we need to get her to nap. I don't care who looks down on me for it, they can suck it.

-Not sure her definite height or weight yet, but I think she's about 23 lbs (my friend's son is 7 months and 20 lbs). Haven't tried measuring her though.

-She will sign "please" when asked to but almost never signs "thank you" anymore. When she first learned "thank you" she did it all the time. I think she knows she has to say "please" before I'll give her something and when I ask her to say "thank you" she knows she doesn't have to because she already has what she wants. Ungrateful little....

-She knows that cold is "brrr..." and it's really cute. She knows ice is cold and says "brrr..." when I say it's cold outside. When I was on the phone with the doctor I told her that Natalie seemed to have a cold and Natalie said "brrr..."

-She knows that when we go visit my in laws we take our jackets off when we come in. If Matt and I don't take ours off because we're going to go somewhere she seems to get upset. Yesterday when I went to visit she started taking off my scarf when I sat down.