Charlotte's 14th Month

Firsts: Move, fever, trying whole milk, first time living with GG and Big D, finger prick and MMR/Chicken pox vaccine, steps! Going to sleep without mommy.

Mommy and Daddy’s Favorites: watching you begin to walk, dance, and play with Aubrey.

Milestones: You are now officially walking. Although you sometimes still prefer to crawl, you are getting better and fast every day, so I know crawling will soon be something of the past.

Measurements: You are a little over 19lbs and I’ll have to check your length from your checkup. You are in mostly 6-12 months clothes, but can probably start to move up in certain things and brands. You wear a size 3 diaper during the day and size 4 at night.

Funniest Moment: Watching you gain your independence. You love Aubrey and love to play with her…but you do NOT like when she tries to play with something that you want or when she sits in mommy’s lap if you want to. One day you took over where Aubrey was coloring and she came to tell mommy something. When she came back to her picture you yelled at her in your little baby voice. You kept yelling any time she came close and then you’d crack up when she walked away. You also love to dance to music. Its hilarious to watch to stop what you’re doing and stand up and sway your hips and bounce up and down as soon as you hear music you like.

Challenges: We’ve had so many challenges over the past 2 months. The biggest one wasn’t anything to do with you…we moved!! It is a wonderful change, but it was difficult packing everything and getting it where we needed to go with you and Aubrey around. A 3 and 1 year old does make moving interesting! We also lived with GG and Big D for about 3-4 weeks. This was challenging just because it was a transition, but it actually went very smoothly and we enjoyed it so much. The most challenging thing having to do with you was that you had I guess some kind of virus. You had a 100-102 fever for about 6 days. It just took forever to get it out of your little system. It was so sad and pitiful seeing you like that. It finally went away and you were back to your regular wild self! You also don’t love your new class in the church nursery and have been crying when mommy drops you off. Hopefully you’ll warm up soon! Also your iron was low at your 1 year checkup…so we will see what that ends up meaning in the next few months.

How we spend the day: Our days now are very different. They are normally spend out and about in the morning which has been wonderful. We have tried to find a variety of library story times to attend, meet up with GG for lunch, or just running errands. After lunch you and Aubrey take a nap and then daddy comes home for dinner. He gets home a little later now so you are normally helping me with dinner.

Feedings/Eating: You are starting to cut back on nursing although it is still somewhat on demand. You’ve actually learned how to communicate now very clearly that you’d like to nurse. You start grabbing at my shirt and say mum mum, mum mum…so that’s interesting! You do this with other food that you want as well and point and say mum mum. We’d cut back a lot until you got sick, then you kind of picked it back up again. You weren’t eating well then so we just did anything to get fluids and nutrients in you. You have been a little more picky these days and aren’t quite as good of an eater as you were. You still love to eat…you just are more picky about what you actually eat.

Sleeping: Because we’ve been out in the morning you’ll either take a small nap in the car, or skip your morning nap all together. This means that your afternoon nap is much longer now and on average about 2 hours. You go to bed about 8 but you’ve had to be a little flexible lately. You’ve had a few weeks where you were waking up 2 times at night and would be up about 6:30 for the day. Thankfully recently you been waking mostly once (sometimes twice) but will sleep until about 8-8:30.

Likes: mommy, daddy (You LOVE when he first comes home from work), Aubrey, fruit (blueberries are your favorite, but you love most fruit), cookies…, climbing, playing

Dislikes: when mommy leaves or walks into another room, someone telling you no, when anyone is with mommy that isn’t you…like Aubrey or Daddy, when someone takes something you want or are playing with or thought about playing with. Haha

Mobility: You are walking, crawling, and climbing on everything you can. You love to stand up and dance.

Favorite toy: You love your baby Stella! You have starting pointing to her before you go to bed or take a nap. I love that you have found something to love and I’m hoping it sticks! You also love to ride on the little push car. You can push it and walk or ride on it. You’re getting better and going backwards and forwards, but you love when Aubrey pushes you fast.

Upcoming Events: meeting mommy’s friend Emily

New Explorations: Walking! You look so cute and are now exploring so many things as you learn to walk. You look like a little Frankenstein because you hold your hands out straight. You are a huge climber also. You love to turn the water on and off in mommy and daddy’s tub and play in water. You also love taking a bath with Aubrey now. I think you will love the pool this summer!

Sounds, words, and communication: You are talking so much now! There are some words I know you say for sure, and there are other words I think you might be saying but I’m not 100% yet. You definitely say uh oh, hi, bye bye (and wave), dada (you’ve even said daddy recently), mama, mum mum (sounds similar to mama so I’m thinking you use them interchangeable haha). I think you’ve started to say GG (we both thought we heard you say bye bye GG), you bark when you see puppies, you point to things you want, you scream and yell when you don’t want something, you cry when we tell you no, you shake your head yes and no, and so many other things.

Teeth: You cut three teeth at once! Which the doctor said may have contributed to your lingering fever. You’re now working on the final one on the bottom which makes 8 total. That’s a lot of new teeth in a short amount of time!

Exciting Happenings: I feel like we need a whole category to talk about all of the new exciting things that went on the past few months. Since your first birthday we have officially moved into our new house. You love it…especially the stairs. We changed churches which you seem ok with until mommy leaves your side. We celebrated you second Christmas, although it was your first real Christmas where you spent it with actual extended family and didn’t sleep through all of itJ You also have a new pediatrician. We miss Dr. Makamula so much but we have had a great experience with our new doctors so far.