Megan at 18 months

Megan is 18 months and 9 days old today. Yesterday we had her 18 month appointment and I thought I should write about what she's like at this age. She's growing up so quickly and we are so proud of the wonderful little girl that she is!

First the statistics. She's 26 lbs, 33 1/4 inches long, and her head is 19 3/4 inches around. Ha. That's 75th percentile for weight, 92nd for height, and over 100th for head. Oh well, at least her head doesn't look huge...at least to me.

She is a smart one. The sheet the doctor's office gives you says she should be running (check - and dancing like a mad woman), turning 2-3 pages at a time (usually only one), know 10 words (um, definitely), know one body part (more like pretty much every one), and copy parents (check). Megan is talking constantly. Mostly still one word at a time, but just today she has really morphed into using two quite a bit. She knows pretty much all her animals and sounds, almost all her body parts (her favorite is "belbow" or elbow) including things like forehead, eyebrows, etc., most foods (today she was asking for goat cheese and meat at lunch), and lots of the characters on Sesame Street. (Hey! I was pregnant and exhausted for half her life. Give me a break!) She loves butterflies (buh-fye), can tell you what a piano, guitar, and drums say, and can now name most family members and friends. And this week she has started referring to herself as Mee-mee (Meg meg) or Megs. Because of having my mom here, she has also started sometimes referring to me as "Cash" or Catherine (I can't remember how it sounds) and she points to her Daddy when you ask her where Jamie is. We skyped with her great grandparents in England on Sunday for the first time in months and on Monday she asked about them by name.

Megan has loved books and music for pretty much her entire life. She'll sit and look at books or listen to them read (if shes in the right mood) for a long time. She's now starting to really look at the pictures and notice things like the toy elephant on the shelf in Goodnight Moon or the mess the ball made when it broke the window in her Bible verse book.

And she loves to sit at the piano with Daddy and play along with him. Now she'll often sing along, although not necessarily the right tune yet. Her favorite songs are "ABCDABBB", "Bah bah bah bah", "Woe woe woe" and "Up uh buh buh". She also sings along with her lullaby by singing "peesh, peesh, peesh." (Translations: ABC, Baa baa black sheep, Row row row your boat, and Twinkle twinkle little star - or "Up above the world so high". And I will lie down and sleep in peace.) She also likes a Dutch song that my mom and Oma sing to her "dei dei dei" and can do the actions to the eensy weensy spider, round and round the garden, and jack be nimble jack be quick.

And don't get me started on her dancing. Her favorite is dancing around the kitchen with her daddy. She'll push the button on her Leapfrog fridge farm thing to make it play its hick music (can't think of the name for the genre - sorry: baby brain) and dance round and round the kitchen.

Speaking of her daddy. She loves to rough house with him, play "hide" with him, and generally chase and be rough with him. Her little eyes sparkle with mischief and she loves to run up to people with a growl to try to scare them. But despite her love for roughness with Daddy other people she knows, she is a super sensitive tender little girl.

She jumps into your lap if she hears a scary noise or a door opens unexpectedly or even if a stranger talks to her sometimes. She is quite shy with strange adults most of the time, but if she sees kids (even complete strangers) will almost always run up unafraid with her playful growl or scream to try to invite them to play. Yesterday the entire doctor's visit was traumatic. She found everything scary, from being measured to the doctor listening to her chest to the shots (of course!) On the way home my mom and I heard her little voice from the car seat, "Huht. (Hurt.) No, no no! No huht." And she talked about the docdoc and the nuhs all evening, only really feeling better when Jamie told her in a naughty voice that nurses say, "rahr". Then she could say that with a sparkle in her eye and she felt better.

Other things about Megan at 18 months?

She loves coloring, or "wite, wite, wite"-ing. She even carries her crayons around the house with her, although she is very good about only writing on paper.

She is and has always been very obedient. If she sees something that is a "no no", she will quickly point it out, shake her finger and say "no no". This happened today with an outlet that didn't have a cover on it and a knife on the counter (it was out of reach, but she could still see it.)

She loves her baby sister. This could be a whole different blog post. She constantly wants to kiss her and look at her and be with her.

She gets obsessed with things. There are times she will not stop talking about the breast pump and the noise it makes and the milk it makes, etc. If there is a glass of water in her sight, she will almost always point to it and say "han" (hand), meaning that she wants to stick her hand in it and either "splash splash splash" or "wub wub wub" (rub water on someone's knee or hand or arm or whatever). And if she is told "no" she is NOT happy about it.

She loves looking at pictures and videos of herself and other family members. First thing in the morning, she almost always points to one of our phones and says, "pic pic".

She is a very non-picky eater. Or maybe just a non-traditional eater. She loves spicy food. Chili or jambalaya or buffalo chicken nuggets or whatever. She will scarf down food that makes her Mia's eyes water. Today she tried goat cheese and loved it! Her favorite food is cheese and her favorite kind of cheese is pepperjack. She also loves applesauce ("appa"), spinach (usually), milk, juice, chocolate ("toc toc"), cookies ("cook cook"), mandarin oranges, banana, strawberries, plums, peaches, black beans, rice and lots of other foods.

She loves Elmo and any youtube video of Mahna mahna and frequently asks to watch them. I usually try to limit it to 30 minutes a day or less.

She is so tender hearted. She loves to kiss people and when her friend Bailey across the street fell down, cried for her because she was crying.

If she falls she usually says, "ok" in a pathetic voice and then comes over for a kiss.

Last night was the second night in a row that Megan has ever slept through the night! Praise the Lord! It has been a sleepless 18 months for me!

This morning my mom decided to try to write down everything Megan said to try to get a count of the words she knows. After half an hour she gave up, but this is what she got in half an hour:

wawa (water)

bubub (light bulb)

no

aha!

yes

uhoh

ba (pacifier)

poon (spoon)

roll roll

yid (lid)

eat

moh (more)

Dada

sing (thing) - in response to "I don't know what that is"

write

mik (milk)

plum

walk walk

keen (clean)

een (in)

bed

egg

dadaub (strawberries)

tur (stir)

mess

watch

yook (look)

MeMe (Megan)

Me egg (Megan's egg)

bye bye

poop

bread

uppa (up)

fork

cut cut cut

see

toe toot (I'm so cute) - Jamie taught her that that is what princesses say

cold

han (hand)

mor han

neck

mama

bebe (baby)

ABBBB (ABCD)

down

hurt

cream

toctoc (chocolate)

open

closed

hide Dadda

Elmo

kiss

tay-pee (toothpaste)

Well, I know this isn't very neatly ended and is probably incomplete, but Megan is home from Starbucks with her Grammy and I have a feeling that if I don't finish now, this will go the way of all my other half-finished, never published blog posts.