R: 17 Months

1.13.2017


I stopped writing monthly posts when R turned 12 months, but I wanted to pop in and write up a quick post about all the things she's doing now at 17 months because she is really starting to shine and I don't want to forget any of it.

-When prompted, she will give hugs and kisses to Jordan and I and to her grandparents and aunts/uncles. DEAD. Sweetest ever.

-Waves goodbye and will blow goodbye kisses when prompted.

-Can point to her eyes, ears, mouth, teeth, nose, hair, belly button, arms, legs, feet, fingers, and my sister-in-law taught her where her dimples are just this week.

-Signs "please, more, all done," and we are working on "thank you." When she wants something we have, she grunts and points emphatically. We say, "R, use your words to tell us what you want." Then we offer her words for the things she might be asking for. When we land on what she wants, we ask her to say please, and lately she's started signing please without being asked.

-Absolutely hates having her teeth brushed. Hates. 

-She can run fast and enjoys running up and down the hallway...and basically everywhere else.

-Loves loves her Praise Baby DVDs. When she knows we are going to put her DVD on, she smiles and then opens her mouth really big like "woah!" and claps.

-Dances to music by wobbling her head back and forth and grinning. 

-I wouldn't say she has a large vocabulary yet, but she has started saying some distinguishable words. Other than mama and dada, "dra" (draw/color) is probably the one we can understand the best. She loves to color and asks to do it a lot. R also loves her "nanas" (bananas) basically all day every day. She loves fruit just like her mama!

-She can point out all her aunts and uncles and grandparents by name when prompted.

-She's not a picky eater at all. There are really only a few things she doesn't seem to like: oranges, apples, plain ground beef or chicken (unless we put some kind of sauce on it). I keep waiting for her to get picky on me, but seriously she will eat basically anything.

-LOVES reading. She will bring you a book and swing it rather violently right at your head. (We are working on a softer approach.) She then turns around and backs up until she's right on top of you, and then she plops down in your lap and wiggles until she's perfectly situated. Depending on her mood, she will either sit through the entire book before bringing you another or she will sit through three pages before getting another book and reading another three pages. Her favorite books right now are: If You Give a Pig a Pancake, If You Give a Mouse a Cookie, Sherlock Holmes (the Little Master Conan Doyle series), I Love You Through and Through, Who Is Coming to Our House? and I'm the Biggest Thing in the Ocean


-Takes one nap every day. She goes down around noon and sleeps until 1:30 or 2:00. Occasionally she will go until 2:30. We rarely have a problem with her going down for a nap. She eats lunch around 11:30, and then after lunch we put her in her cotton sleep sack, give her a paci, and lay her in the crib with a blanket and her three stuffed animals. She's awake when we leave the room, but she usually goes to sleep on her own!


-For bedtime, she typically goes down well. Her bedtime is between 7-7:30 depending on how she's acting. She eats dinner around 6:00/6:15, and then at 7:00 we change her, put her in her pjs, and put her in the crib with a paci and her stuffed animals and a blanket. For the last month or so, she's been doing this hilarious thing where after we leave and shut the door, she will just stay awake in her crib playing and flipping the light switch off and on for 30-45 minutes. Sometimes she even falls asleep with the light still on! But she doesn't cry or anything. Typically she will cry if she's thrown the paci out the side of the crib and wants it back, but otherwise she goes to sleep well on her own and sleeps until we wake her up the next morning for work (or about 7:00 on the weekends). For the record, we really didn't do any kind of sleep training with her. I'm really hoping Baby Bum #2 is as good a sleeper as R is!

-We recently restricted the paci to naps and bedtime only, and she got the hang of it quickly! She initially gets mad when we take it away, but I think she's starting to understand that we take it in the morning, and she doesn't really seem to worry about it the rest of the day.

-She loves playing with the fridge magnets and the lids of the tupperware containers. She has a toy where she sorts colored blocks into a container by shape, and we have to help her point out the color, but she is really getting the hang of how the shapes work. She is also getting good at her Melissa & Doug fruit puzzle.

-This is the best one. We did not teach her this, so I have no idea how she learned it, but she can tell us when she's pooped! She comes up and pats her bottom, and 9 times out of 10 she's pooped. I say, "R, did you go poo poo?" And she pats her bottom again. So I say, "Let's go change your diaper," and she runs down the hall and right into her room and over to her changing table! It cracks me up. Maybe potty training is around the corner????

-She loves loves loves sitting at Jordan's desk in his lap. When I get home from work with her, she will run down the hall and pound on the back bedroom door saying, "Dada? Dada?" When she see him after work, her eyes get big and she laughs.


-She is very smart and picks up on things we do and copies us. She is not at all fooled by us "hiding" things in the pocket of our jackets, etc. She will go for it immediately and pull it out.

-When I pick her up at daycare, they are usually having gym time. I walk in and say, "R, mama's here!" She looks at me and gives me a huge grin and then races off in the opposite direction and I chase her. I usually play with her in the gym for 5-10 minutes before leaving daycare. We throw balls around and just play. I like not rushing out and just spent a minute or two watching her play with the other kids and getting a chance to talk to her teacher about how she did that day.

-R is very opinionated and definitely has a personality. She loves playing outside (always has since she was a baby!), going to the park, and going down the slides especially. 

She is such an absolute joy, and I just love every minute I get to spend with her! 


Laura J said...

She's so sweet!! It's so funny, I'm reading this and nodding to almost everything! My little guy just turned 18 months, and pretty much does most of these things too!! Can I ask what you are using to teach her signing?

erinhzauner said...

So sweet!! Makes me miss that age and excited to get it back with W.

The Girl who Loved to Write said...

What a big personality!! I laughed so hard at "swings it violently at your head" hahaha!

The Lady Okie said...

We aren't using anything. Like, not a book or anything, if that's what you're asking. When she was a baby (like maybe 6 months? I don't really remember) we started doing "more" and "all done" for when she was eating. It took a long long time to catch on, but it was handy to let us know what she wanted when she couldn't talk. We've kept up with more and all done, and they do it at daycare too. She picked up "please" somewhere (daycare, I can only assume), and we didn't actually teach her that but since she was doing it we started doing it at home, and now we ask her to say please before we give her stuff just to start trying to teach her manners and to not just demand things. We are working on "thank you," like I said, but she's not really doing it (to her it looks like blowing kisses, so she gets confused ha!).

We just looked up the signs online like "what is the sign for ____" and started doing it with her. We aren't hard core about doing a lot of signs because I can't keep up with all of them, but having a few has been nice! Plus babies doing sign language is adorable :)

According to Jax said...

I love this sweet recap!!! Sounds like she is the perfect little 17month old!! And you will be amazed at how quickly her vocabulary will develop over the next few months. When Leah was 18months, I think I counted like 20 words she could say...but now (at 19months) she is copying so much of what we say and is using a lot of two and three word sentences. We bought her a basketball hoop and we always tell her to "shoot the hoop"...and that is one of the 3 words sentences that she can say. :)

jaime said...

I think baby signs are the CUTEST! We did them with our son, but he was an early talker so we abandoned the sign language. My baby girl has "milk" down (she's 8 months) and I love watching her. (Of course when she signs this, if I'm not fast enough she does get super angry if I don't feed her soon!)

Laura Morgan said...

😍 I think this really is one of the most fun ages. They've all been fun, but it's the best when they start showing interests and stuff. I think Ava that's the age Ava started drawing, and I let her have an old notebook of mine. That turned out to be genius because I have this record of her first scribbles that turned into drawings and collages. It's not in chronological order or anything—she would just find a random page and go for it. Once it was all filled, I put her name and the completion date and gave her another notebook.
Anyway. Babies! 😍😍😍

Audrey Louise said...

I can't believe she's at 17 months! I feel like you just finished up the monthly updates!
She sounds so fun and full of personality! What a little smartie!

Angi said...

She's such a doll and getting so big! This makes me excited to have a toddler!

Maria said...

Oh my gosh. I'm so excited.

I must admit that most bloggers make me terrified to have a child, but when you talk about R, I'm like "I want one! I want that one!". How cute will these posts be for her to read when she's older?

Courtney said...

I periodically stopped doing monthly updates after a year too, but brought them back around the same time and have loved doing them again! And now, I especially love comparing Mabel and Abigail updates! So I hope you keep these up. They'll be fun to compare between her and baby 2 :)

Kayla MKOY said...

I love that she can point to all her aunt and uncles/etc., I cannot wait for my nephew to KNOW me by name!! :) What a fun age!!

Amy @ A Desert Girl said...

Ahh, love this glimpse into little R's life right now. Ava is doing a few of these things too, and I love seeing what the next three months can bring as she gets to the older and wiser age of 17 months. I'm so excited to see how baby #2's personality is similar and different from R's. You're going to have such fun with them together! Oh! And you should check out these: https://pinholepress.com/names-and-faces-puzzle We got them for Ava as a stocking stuffer for Christmas and she LOVES them. I think R would too! You'd probably need to order more than one set or narrow down the grandparents/aunts/uncles that it covers! There are nine pieces with it and it worked out perfect for our small immediate families (Ava, Mama, Dad, Grandpa, Grandma, Nana, Granddad, Aunt Lisa, and Kiki & Rue share the final piece, naturally :)). Anyway, we love it and I bet R would too.

Laura Darling said...

That's great about the paci!! And how cute that she asks to draw! A little artist! My niece is just a little younger than R, and I can't wait until she is recognizing us aunts and uncles by name!

Katie @ Live Half Full said...

I love this update! So impressed with the fact that you're already teaching her manners. I try not to rush out at daycare pick up as well, it's nice to talk to the teachers and see how the day went and I had one of them tell me how much they appreciate it!

The Lady Okie said...

Yes, I love just chatting with her teachers at the end of the day and playing with R for a bit. It's nice to know they told you that they appreciate it, because sometimes I hope I'm not annoying them and they secretly wish I would just leave. haha!

The Lady Okie said...

Thank you for sharing! That is such a fun idea for a gift! I'd heard of that site and their faces photo books but not a puzzle. That's fun :)

Mimsie said...

Nice detailed update! You will look at this in a few years and think, where did the time go?

Anonymous said...

I'm not sure why I stopped seeing your posts, but I'm glad I caught this update on R. She's getting so big! I had no idea you are pregnant with #2 so Congratulations!!! I hope you are feeling well!

Julie @ Just the Joy's said...

I love that you stay at daycare and play with her before rushing home! I think that's great! So cute that R knows where her dimples are! I've always loved when Remi grabs a book and plops down in my lap. So cute! I hope that potty training is in the near future here too! Remi now says "Uuh Oh, I pooped!" and runs to her changing pad or the potty. So funny!

Jenny Evans said...

You are in for such a treat. Eighteen months thru 3 years old was always one of my most favorite ages. They are just SO CUTE. They walk cute, they talk cute, every little thought they have and the way they do everything is cute. They are beginning to communicated with you more than ever and they are just your little buddy, following you everywhere and wanting to help you with everything.

Rach said...

Ah! She is at such a fun stage! I love babies and I love kids, but toddlers are one of my favorite stages! They are just learning so much every day and they are so much fun! :) Love that she sleeps so well for you guys. I hope Baby #2 does as well!

・ DESIGNED BY ECLAIR DESIGNS