Elsie Marie - 16 Months

GROWTH:  She is about 21 pounds according to our scale at home.  We never took a height measurement but we have been putting away more and more 12 month shirts and pants.

EATING:  She is still a super eater!  She eats most of what we offer but still goes straight for the meat.  She doesn't really like pork roast or chops though.  No real new foods this month.    We have played around with different kinds of yogurt because when we switch for YoBaby to other options she didn't like it so much.  I think we have found she likes the YoToddler and also Chobani Champions yogurt tube things.  She likes to eat with a spoon or fork the most and at times will eat things better if it comes off my fork ;). She still isn't proficient with eating utensils but she is definitely getting better at using them.   We have taken away soft spouted sippy cups because she learned to push them against her tray so that milk would come out on the tray and she could play with it.

SLEEP:  There was big change in the sleep department this month and that is the elimination of the morning nap.  She started it a little bit before she turned 15 months and took a few weeks to get the transition worked out but she is now down to one nap a day and it ends up being a longer nap in the afternoon.  It is hard because sometimes she is still tired in the morning so we take it day by day.  Every now and then she will lay down for a short nap in the morning but that happens so rarely.  As for afternoon naps go she lays down around one and is sleeping between 1.5-2.5 hours.  She is still going to bed right around 7:00PM and waking between 5:15-6:30 AM with most of the mornings waking up before 6:00.  Most mornings she wakes up at 5:15ish and we go in, give her a paci, sometimes pick her up and lay her back down and she will fall back asleep for another 30-60 minutes so that is nice...I just wish she wouldn't wake up at 5:15 to begin with.  We had one REALLY rough morning where she woke up at 4:30 and we could not get her to go back to sleep no matter what we tried. Let's just say it was a long morning.

TEETH:  No new teeth this month so she is still at 12.

DEVELOPMENT:  Each day it is something new with her and I love to watch her grow!  I am still amazed at the things she sees us do and then copies the action.  She definitely follows two step directions pretty well.  As far as self care, she loves to brush her teeth and she even learned how to spit in the sink.  She also does a pretty good with washing her hands.  For large motor development she is really picking up speed with her running and is starting to walk backwards.  She is also starting to want to walk up the stairs hold on to my hands vs crawling up the stairs.  Another thing that is developing is the frequency of her throwing a fit.  We are really working on getting her to use gestures, words, and signs and instead of throwing a fit and whining to get what she wants.

PLAY: Like every other month she still loves her books.  She also like to push things around her in doll stroller.  With the weather getting nice we are spending more and more time outside and at the park.  Unfortunately, we have to time our walks to the park just right because you have a thrown a fit or two on our way home from the park.   She is starting to play more with her puzzles and can even put the pieces into place.  This month she also discovered the set of mega blocks she has loves to get them to stack together.  Other favorites are her baby dolls, her little plush barn and animals, and her singing bunny.

SPEECH:  There are a few words Elsie has started saying this month that surprised me this month one of them being "cracker".  She repeated it after I said it once and then the next time she saw a cracker she pointed to it and said it again.  She is says banana when she sees a banana, baby, names of the kids at daycare, I know there is more but I can't really remember now.  Oh she said no quite a bit when my parents were watching her.