Cora turned 15-months today, and we are amazed at how far she has come in the past month and a half... I don't know whether it's just that she's her own person, or that she benefits from 2nd child syndrome (yes, there are benefits!), or that she has James around to look up to and copy, or whether her gender plays a role (since girls are purported to learn certain things earlier/faster than boys), or if it's a combination of it all (most likely), but she truly is an intelligent and interesting little girl. Yes, a little girl. The baby she once was is quickly disappearing, and is being replaced by a lovely, sweet, thoughtful, smart, opinionated, and adorable little girl.
COMPREHENSIVE WORD LIST:
mama ("ma-mahn" or mama), dada ("da-goo" or "da-doo" or dada), hello ("hewwo"), hi!, uh-oh, whoa, wow, up, go, car ("cah"), Cora ("Co-wa"), no, mine, thank you ("kane-ku"), I got it, get it, boop, poop, nose, toes, popcorn ("a-cohn"), Aw man!, nipple, eye, shoes, ball, necklace ("neck-iss"), papa (for Grandpa, just like James says it!), yellow ("wewwo"), book ("bap"), belly button ("be-buh"), tada!, I'm tired ("I tied"), muah!, excuse you ("cuze-oo"), gorilla ("gilla"), bear ("beh"), baby ("bay"), kitty/cat ("kiddie/ca"), Jude ("Dude")
BODY PARTS SHE CAN POINT OUT (on herself and others):
nose, eyes, mouth, teeth, belly button, nipple, ears
OTHER RECOGNITIONS:
She is getting really good at following direction, and does so to the point that people actually make comments about it now (surprised that she listens and understands so well at her age). She'll hand things to me, or over to her Daddy or James, when I ask her to. She knows what most of her toys are and can find them or put them away as requested. She eagerly goes to retrieve her shoes when we tell her it's time to go outside. If you mention food in any way (breakfast, lunch, snack, eat, dinner), she immediately runs to her chair and cries to be put up at the table (then points at her bib and yells "Mine!" until you get her situated to eat). I must admit, she is becoming easier and easier to deal with the more she's learning to express herself and thus have her needs/wants met in a timely manner.
PHYSICAL SKILLS:
walking, running, bouncing, climbing, slipping shoes on, helping to get herself dressed or undressed, hugging (tight clasps around the neck), clapping, high-fives, giving "Cheers!", and carrying 3+ items at a time or moving a heavy item
FAVORITE ACTIVITIES:
puzzles, sorting, "cooking" in her kitchen, copying James (do ANYTHING), going for walks (whether walking or strolling or wagon-riding), coloring/painting, sliding, climbing the stairs, snuggling the kitties, holding and "using" the phone or camera, and "helping" Mama or Daddy with the laundry or dishes or cooking.
DISLIKES:
She STILL hates to get her PJ's on after bath time. And she now fights us on diaper changes as well (all day long, not just at bedtime). Other than that, I can't think of anything she protests.
TO SLEEP OR NOT TO SLEEP:
That is still the question. She had been sleeping through the night about 3-4 nights per week for a while there, just long enough to get our hopes up that a permanent change was on the horizon. Now, all of a sudden, she is back to waking most nights. She isn't waking with hunger or teething pain or sickness. She's just waking. And the girl has got us figured out. She uses her ear-piercing scream to get us running downstairs, taking 2 steps at a time in our stupor, trying to prevent her from waking her brother. She calms down as soon as we make our way to her crib. As we replace her paci and tell her to lay back down and go to sleep, she simply reaches down to grab her blankey, then, lovey in hand and paci in mouth, reaches up and coo's at us to pick her up and take her over to the guest bed for snuggles. And if we don't? She starts the screaming fit again until she gets her way. I'm starting to wonder whether she'd do better by herself in a bed, rather than the crib. After all, we DID have James out of the crib by this age...
IN HER BELLY:
Cora eats everything in sight. She hasn't met a food she doesn't like, and she can literally snack all day if we let her. In fact, she will often hand us her desired snack from the "kid drawer" and/or her snack trap (or "snap twap" as James calls it) to fill up. Or she'll stand at the fridge and complain until we get her some cheese. We honestly don't know where she puts it all! As for liquids, she is currently nursing twice a day (first thing in the morning and again at bedtime) and drinking 24 oz of coconut milk in between. No juice for her yet (other than the sips she steals from her big brother's sippy cup now and then). This past weekend was our first with a non-nursing naptime (since I stopped pumping last week), and she did just fine. I'm now on my second week of not pumping, and while I don't miss it, I had thought I would be more excited about it. But there has been no fanfare. I just decided last Monday that I was ready to drop that final mid-day pumping session, so I did. I was only getting a couple of ounces anyway. After a combined 26 months (including 300 hours for James and 160 hours for Cora, a grand total of 460 hours!), I am no longer a "Pumping Working Mama" (one of the many groups I had joined on BabyCenter for support over the past 3 years). It feels weird. But I'm still a nursing mama, and for that I am grateful. I still don't have an end date in sight, and I'm OK with that. We'll figure it out when we get there. In the meantime, I have no doubt that my milk supply will last for 2 feedings a day for as long as Cora and I are interested in doing so. I had wondered whether it would really work to be so "part time", but hearing her hungrily gulp her milkies in the morning and sweetly savor her bedtime snack has me convinced - this is right for us.
WEIGHING IN:
At 20.8 lbs on the home scale. And measuring an estimated 30 inches. And she's currently getting all her eye teeth. Her 1-year molars are completely in already, giving her a total of 12-going-on-16 teeth! She's a growing girl, and she reminds us of it daily!
