A Little Catching Up to do...

So much has changed since my last post when P was 11 months old (now almost 16 months!), I'm not even sure where to start, so I'm just going to go for it.

P is just such a pleasure these days and we have fallen so head over heals in love with her as parents. It truly is the greatest thing to be a mom, a dad, and be raising such a beautiful, intelligent, heart warming little girl. We have had a lot of great milestones and adventures over the past 5 months, and one not so great event with the passing of my dad, and Peyton's Papa Tommy.

Sleep:

We have maintained Peyton's bed routine and she is down at 8:00pm every night. She sleeps all through the night and is up between 6:30am and 7:00am every morning. Both John and I feel great about her night time sleep and finally are relaxed about night time. I remember back to the nights when we went to bed feeling anxious about how the night would go in terms of her sleep, and am incredibly grateful we are past that stage. As far as napping goes, she is still taking 1 nap per day and goes down between 12:00pm and 1:00pm. That nap lasts anywhere between 1.5 hours and 3 hours. We have completely cut out her sleep sacs, and she now sleeps in just her jammies. We introduced a light blanked around 14 months and she does well with that. She still sleeps with her white noise, and remains on her tummy most of the night. While we do love how independent of a sleeper Peyton is, we occasionally wish that she could crawl in bed with us and have a nice sleep, but that just does not happen. If she ever gets in bed with us, she simply things its play time. I continually am saying to myself how grateful I am for the sleeping routine we established with Peyton back around 6-8 weeks old. It has been such a lifesaver for us on many occasions, and allows John and I some couple time each night, which we feel is very important for our family. Peyton is a fairly light sleeper.

Clothes:

Currently, Peyton wears 18months-2T clothing.

Eating:

P dropped the bottle during the daytime completely just after her 1st birthday. Shortly after that, we stopped the night bottle, and she now is 100% on sippy cups. She has about 6oz of milk with each meal, and we try to limit her to that. Per her doctors advice, we don't offer her milk outside of meal time very often. In regards to solid food, she still is eating 3 meals per day and eats a wide variety of food. We offered her peanut butter around 15 months, which of course she enjoys. Some of her favorite food includes tofu, hot dogs, yogurt, cheese, eggs, applesauce, and green beans. I have continued to add pureed spinach to her yogurt, applesauce, and pureed carrots to gain her some iron and vegetables.

Talking:

I estimate that P has around 50 words currently. Just after her 1st birthday, her vocabulary started to explode. Her first word (outside mama and dada) was "hello," or "kitty," (we're not sure which came first). She is in a stage now where if you say a word to her, she can almost always repeat it back to you in some form. She says "eat," (and sometimes signs it) when she is hungry, and asks for "milk" when she wants that. Just recently she has begun saying "poo poo" when she is going poo. P's sign language includes the sign for "all done," "bird," "thank you," "eat," and "more."

Walking:

P officially began walking at 15 months. She began taking some steps before that, but she really took off at 15 months.

Doctor Visits:

P's 12 month visit went well. We revisited the doc around 14 months when P had a mild ear infection and was put on antibiotics, which cleared up the infection. P had her first visit to the dentist at 12 months with Dr. Sun. He was wonderful! She has too many teeth to count (including several molars).

Loves anything that's not a toy

LOVES KEYS, CELL PHONES, AND REMOTES

Loves Wheel of Fortune (starting to repeat the letters)

Know's Nana and Grandma's streets (starts calling out Nana when we turn down it)

Loves playing with little kids

When she is done eating, she begins to drop food off her tray

Still working on her obeying "no"

Gets into EVERYTHING (including the toilet and toilet brush cleaner)

Loves reading stories every night before bed (and the "wake up book" with mommy)

Doesn't mind having her teeth brushed

Loves to be tickled (especially with Daddy's whiskers)

Loves bubbles

Loves being outside

Loved to dance to music in the back seat of the car (daddy made a fun compilation of this and posted it to facebook and You Tube), and even asks for music when its not on

P visited the fair with mommy on Labor Day and was able to see and pet cows, goats, pigs and sheep.

She loves making the sounds for animals. Her favorites are cow, horse, cat, dog, pig, lion, monkey, and bird.

I changed my work schedule back at the 4th of July so now I get to stay home with her each morning. I go to work at 10:00am and John picks her up from daycare at 4:30pm. We are still taking her to Debbie's for daycare (and LOVE it!), but we are in the process of finding a back up daycare for P for when Debbie is on vacation.