Since Celia’s past a year and things are slowing down developmental-wise a little bit, I’ve switched to three month updates. Her growth has slowed down but still sometimes she gets heavier overnight it seems! Her cold over Christmas definitely made her loose some of her pudge and so she’s a bit trimmer now and gained only 1.5 lbs in the last  three months while growing an inch.

Celia has some major separation and stranger anxiety going on right now, developmentally on schedule, which means she hated the doctors visit this week. Even just getting her weighed and measured produced a lot of screaming and crying. She needs to be close all night long, but absent colds, night terrors, and teething (you know those one or two days a month) she is sleeping a bit better once she’s next to me.

She wants to be just like the rest of us, from using a napkin, to making art whenever and however Josie is doing it. She screams if she isn’t involved, and climbs. She moves chairs around and climbs up on things very quickly and without much care. So I need to watch her more now lately because she’ll do dangerous things without realizing it and gets there in the two seconds it takes me to wash my hands and turn around. She’s shed more blood thus far than I think Josie has in her entire life, generally from bashing her face into something and having some bleeding gums. She’s just not as careful and I just can’t be beside her 24/7.

Celia loves to dance and frequently asks for me to put music on by pointing to the ipod and stomping on the ground. Or she’ll find the musical teapot or another music making toy.

She also likes to make things a game that aren’t, like putting on her coat. It’s a bit frustrating when she see’s me take down her coat and runs the other way. I often just try to wait for her to come back and to try not to play that game. That in combination with her sister screaming that she either does her coat herself or that I must help her do it (depending on her mood) getting out of the house is a challenge, but a necessity. Celia is not much of a homebody these days, she wants to go out. Even just walking around outside the house is a good way to cheer her up.

Her language is really starting to take off. I heard her say the ‘n’ sound this morning and new words will pop up regularly. On Tuesday we counted 17 words, including those in english, sign language and spanish. She also does a jabbing sort of point to try to get her message across. When she wants to say ‘no’ as in ‘no don’t change my diaper’ she has a very clear head shake, and when she wants to say yes she just sort of jumps and bounces happily. She understands a lot of what we say although now it’s not clear how much she’s just picking up the key words or really understanding the whole idea.

She watches Josie and copies a lot of what she does. Celia has started to pick up the lacing beads and string them like Josie. Her favorite game is generally throwing things. We’ve got a big set of bean bags and balls for her to work through and she likes to play catch even though she can’t really catch anything yet. She can throw the bean bag about 5 feet with some pretty good oomph. Her aim and calibration are still a work in progress. She loves to brush her teeth, Jordi suggests it and she goes running to the bathroom.

Celia continues to not be too interested in books though. Once in a while one will catch her attention and she’ll look at the pictures for some in the car, but otherwise she finds my habit of reading to Josie to be very frustrating and annoying and generally tries to grab the book and run away.

Celia is a very polite music listener. Even if she’s falling asleep or nursing, when a song ends, she’ll sit up and clap. She doesn’t go to many sing-a-longs but I guess she’s a good music appreciator or she learned from the few early sing-a-longs she did get to go to! She also likes to clap for herself when she does something ‘right’, like taking my slippers off my feet and putting them on the shoe rack. She’s also starting to learn how to help change the sheets by taking the dirty sheets and putting them in the dirty laundry pile for me.

Overall right now she’s an eager girl who has lots of opinions on what she does, when she does it and how. Just like the rest of us.

• Size/weight: 18 months clothes, 31.5″ tall and 22 lbs 1 oz.
• Favorite foods: breastmilk, avocado, cheese, pasta
• Favorite toy: sticks, stacking blocks and lacing beads
• Favorite book: not many, lift the flaps are favorites right now
• Favorite activity: Playing outside, dancing, throwing
• Sleeping: bedtime ~7:45; one nap; gets up between 6 and 7
• New skill: climbing quickly and throwing
• Teeth: 13 and more to come soon
• Vocalizations: Over 17 words and counting

This entry was posted on Saturday, January 21st, 2012 at 1:56 pm by Jen. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can skip to the end and leave a response. Pinging is currently not allowed.