We are well. I am almost afraid to type that. I was just reading through my last post. We were no where near done with that sickness when I typed. Bella ended up puking for two and a half days. But now…hopefully, spring has sprung and we will get to enjoy some of this fine weather and just be well for a bit. (After I finish the pile of work in my inbox…)

Moving on…

Audrey had her 15 month check up today. She lost about a half pound from the tummy bug, but the doc said while it would be good to have her gain a bit, she is still in the normal range. Audrey ate a ton today, so I am thinking she is trying to catch up as well. Her stats:

Height: 30.5 – 47%
Weight: 19lbs 7oz – 24%
Head: 46cm – 53%

It was a pretty mellow appointment. I don’t feel like I have nearly as many questions like I did when I would go to the doc with Bella at this age. We did talk about Milk – since she is not currently eating milk products (they upset her tummy). The doctor wasn’t concerned at all. Said that as long as I feed her lots of fruits and vegies – and try for calcium rich foods, she’ll be fine. I may try cheese again in a few weeks, and am going to continue with the coconut milk for the time being. She is getting a little birth mark on her side – the doc checked that out and said all was ok. She seems to be growing right on target. She took her shots pretty easily, just nursed for a few minutes after for comfort and then proceeded to have a pretty normal day.

Audrey’s personality is really coming through right now. She is very demonstrative and very good at communicating what she wants to you. She says eat, nurse, night night, more, all done, down, up, book as commands very clearly to me. In many ways, this makes taking care of her pretty easy, as there is little guess work – however, when she doesn’t get what she wants (and she knows you understand) she gets pretty mad and throws a fit. She is still pretty easy to distract though. She is starting to do silly little things and when she catches you laughing she really enjoys it. Tonight, we all had home made popsicles after dinner, and she held hers out and said, “Cheers” – and everyone was quite amused (this is the first time she had ever initiated it…) then she of course couldn’t get enough of it. (Neither could we! 🙂 At lunch today, I let her take a frog bath toy up in her high chair and she was trying to feed him her lunch and saying “num, num, num” to pretend he was eating. She was cracking me up.

She is also pretty daring at the park. She loves to climb the stairs of the play structure and then slide down the small slide all by herself. She is getting better at walking (although she still has that cute drunken sailor swagger…) This morning, Bella was playing music and spinning after breakfast and Audrey watched her and then tried to do it too (it looked more like a large circle walk). Pretty cool to see her try though! I noticed she tried to do this over and over again throughout the day.

She is such a happy baby, and so easy going – you would think she was this amazing sleeper. She is getting a bit better with that – but I just don’t think she requires as much as Bella did. She will go from 7:30 or 8pm or so until 6:30am and then take a 1-2 hour nap during the day. After all the sickness, she was up again at night but we are currently letting her cry it out again, and she seems to be doing ok with that as each night she does it less and less…But, putting her down to sleep is a dream…she is so tired at the end of each day, I normally just nurse her, read her a couple of books, sing her skinamarinkydink, and lay her in bed and I’ll say “night night” as I leave and she normally goes to sleep within a few minutes.

I feel so blessed to have this sweet baby girl in my life. She adds so much fun and excitement to our days – and her sweetness and snuggles melt my heart daily. I’m so grateful.  12-18 months is so interesting to me because it seems like something new is happening daily. I really do look forward to seeing her grow and learn more – but sometimes I wish I could just bottle up these moments or make time stand still, because she is SO darn cute right now.