Stella 14 Months

It's getting harder and harder to keep up with these posts. Stella turned 14 months old almost 2 weeks ago but better now than never if I'm going to try to keep up.

SO cute!!

Walking out to the car by herself. 

Election day playground fun 

always the center of attention 

So teeny and cute in her dresses!

Babywearing 

She LOVES her Togee

Passed out 

Not so sure of the snow 

Thanksgiving crazies!

So many teeth now

Snoozing and cuddling with her doggie she picked for her birthday 

Christmas pajamas

Big world, little girl 

Getting a smooch from her friend Connor 

Decorating the tree

Little Stella,

You are such a little wild woman. You're in constant motion, even running now to keep up with your big sisters. You say so much and jibber jabber almost non-stop throughout the day. You are repeating and using quite a few words and we can now add pop pop, diaper, poop, sock, sweater, frog, Elmo, Elsa, Olaf, meow, kitty, baa, and I'm back to your repertoire of words. You will try to imitate a lot of words and animal sounds. This past month you nearly doubled the number of teeth you had and went from 4 to 7. Needless to say, sleep wasn't the best. You've also been sick a lot and had a pretty bad cold with lots of coughing. Preschool means your sisters brings home lots of germs. This month you learned how to climb. On to the coffee table to stand up, on to the side table next to the couch, into your box Grandpa Scott made you, on to child sized tables, etc. If I don't watch you at nearly every moment I find you often getting yourself into trouble. It's amazing the difference being mobile (and having big sisters) makes. Your sisters definitely weren't getting into this much trouble at this age. You're getting a little pickier with your eating and just LOVE to feed Togee our dog. She knows it and parks herself right next to your highchair any chance she gets. We've starting having to put her out for meals or you feed her everything. You are still sensitive to dairy and don't do well if you have too much. You still take meds for your reflux as well. We also can't feed the dogs unless you're in your highchair or bed these days since you don't leave them alone. While Togee will still eat that way, I think it scares Pepper away and then he doesn't end up eating. You've had a few good nights of sleep where you were only up once to eat and went right back to sleep, but that's not the norm. I'm hopeful we'll get better sleep when you're not teething or sick. You are beyond exhausting to your mama since you're in constant motion. You're always getting into things or causing trouble, but it's a good thing you're so darn cute. You are the teeniest little walker/runner around. I love putting you in dresses and tights since you're so great at walking. I didn't get to do that with your sisters until they were quite a bit older. You are such an outgoing little girl and are friendly to most people you meet. You weren't super sure of Santa and cried once Clara did, but usually you're great with strangers. I've started leaving you at the childcare spot at the YMCA and you've done really well minus one time where they had to come get me because you were crying. I'm hoping it was just an off day. Most days you only nap once but some days you fall asleep in the morning for a short nap in the car. When you don't take a morning nap you usually have a great 2-3 hour afternoon nap. It's so nice when you sleep at the same time as your sisters and give your mama a break. You're getting so smart and understand so much. You'll point to body parts or family members when asked. I can't believe how big and smart you're getting and how fast time is flying by. I just love you so much and can't imagine our family without you in it. You add so much and are such a little firecracker! I love you my wild child.

L & C Update

Lucy and Clara are now 28 months old. For the first two years I was great about doing monthly updates. Once Stella arrived that became more difficult. The thing is, they're still growing and changing so much and I don't want to forget what they were like during this time. 

•Clara has really exploded with her language in the past month or so. She's finally using her words more than gestures or whining and it's wonderful. Everyone is so much happier and less frustrated. She tends to be hard to understand at times. 

•Lucy is also talking more and is regularly coming up with 4 and 5 word sentences on her own. She's pretty easy to understand. 

•The only way to get the girls to go up and down our stairs at home without holding a hand or complaining is to have them pretend to be monkeys. They make loud monkey sounds the entire time. 

•The girls drink so well from open cups now so that's all we use. We also switched to booster seats and we are all eating at the dining room table instead of the kitchen. I'd like to say we don't need bibs anymore, but Clara does. She such a messy eater and often has full sensory experiences with her meals prior to eating them.  

•Lucy is totally potty trained and only wears diapers overnight. Even though she's dry every morning she still prefers to wear one at night. Clara pees on the potty every time but has had a few poop accidents. Not fun :(

•Lucy is very insistent on doing things by herself. She often has to redo something I've just done if she didn't do it independently. It takes her forever to do some things! 

•I feel like a referee quite regularly as the girls fight like good sisters as I like to say. If we get two of something that's the same, they'll find a way to fight over them. If we only get one, they fight. If we get two that are different, they'll fight. You probably get the point. The sweet moments are there, but some days they seem quite few and far between all the fighting. 

•Lucy hasn't been very good in the car since we went to Albany over New Year's Eve. She always has something to complain about and it's not very fun. 

•Clara still loves books and monkeys. She's accumulated at least five different monkey stuffed animals in the past few months. 

•The girls love the baby and anything new we get for her. We recently borrowed a bumbo seat and they're constantly trying to sit in it. They really love the baby so much and will talk to her and make her smile or talk. 

•We finally weaned both girls off of Prevacid for acid reflux. It seemed like it a took a little adjusting, but they're fine. 

•Lucy has both of her two year molars on the bottom and Clara has a half of one on the bottom. My girls  are always slow to get teeth, so of course these will be slow too. 

•Clara has finally figured out how to jump. It took her quite a while and my mom got them a trampoline for Christmas. Lucy would coach her and say, "Two feet Claka, two feet", or "bend knees Claka". It  was so cute and funny. 

•The girls do gymnastics on Tuesdays, music on Wednesdays, and swimming on Fridays. We usually got to the library or story time at least once a week as well. I'm also hoping to check out a MOPS group this week.

•The baby dolls are still by far the favorite toys. They're starting to get into the Duplo blocks they got for Christmas and Lucy is getting pretty good at 24 piece puzzles. They both love doing puzzles. 

•I have no idea where they got it, but all of a sudden they would say, "Two daddy, two daddy" and each say that a few times taking turns going back and forth and then eventually correct to saying "One daddy" a few times. I teased W about what he was telling them when I wasn't around. They've been obsessed with the number two for a while. 

Well, that's the quick and easy summary of what my girls are up to. Does this sound like your two year old?

"Hi"

Clara has been crawling up a storm. We first got excited when she crawled across a room. Now she is effortlessly crawling out of rooms and around the house. She really is proud of herself. 

My mom came over the other day and I was upstairs with the girls in their room. When my mom called upstairs to see where we were Clara started crawling towards the top of the stairs, shrieking both with excitement and to tell my mom where she was. It was so cute! 

Lucy, on the other hand, is doing a lot of sitting around. It really stinks that she has to watch her sister move and learn to crawl while she stays confined to her cast and bouncy seat, beanbag, bumbo, etc. On a positive note, she's been tolerating being on her tummy more and is trying to roll and move around in her crib. She grabs onto the crib rails and throws her body around. Every night when we put her down to bed she does around 45 minutes of acrobatics instead of trying to sleep. I love to watch on the monitor. 

The positive to Lucy not being able to focus much on motor developments is that she has been focusing a lot instead on her communication. 

She's been using sign language to communicate "please" for most of the summer, but neither Lucy or Clara had said their "first word" until the other night. Lucy had finished her sponge bath and she was looking in the mirror with daddy waving as he said hi when she also said "hi". It was so cute and I even got it on video. Since then she's been imitating animal sounds like crazy (she'll meow like a kitty, pant like a dog, growl like a lion, and baa like a sheep). She's also tried to say our dog Pepper's name multiple times. As a speech pathologist you can imagine I get pretty excited about this stuff. 

Every day just gets better and better with these girls. They are growing and learning so much every day and I love watching them explore and master new things. 

Today we celebrate their birthday with a big birthday bash. Although this mama invited way too many people, it's going to be so fun to celebrate that we all survived the first year of their lives.