Aurora - Seventeen Months

Height :: 32" (75%)

Weight :: 23 lbs (45%)

Head Circumference :: 19" (90%)



Aurora has added "Thank You" to her vocabulary



All of the sudden she has become interested in helping Mama clean up messes.  It is amazing how much their little minds absorb -- the other day she spilled a glass of water on the coffee table and without me saying anything to her she promptly ran into the kitchen, brought back a towel and laid it down on the spilled water.





She has started dancing with her dolly -- too cute!



Aurora is off and running... and running... and running.  This girl never slows down!



The Olympics have been on the last few weeks.  We usually don't let Aurora watch television, but we have made an exception for this.  She thinks it is especially fun to cheer with Dadda for America, 'Mer-ta!



She has started requesting her favorite song, Baa Baa Black Shep, by name -- Baa Baa Baa?

Aurora - Sixteen Months

Aurora 's language skills have exploded this month.  We bought her some flashcards for the plane to Anguilla and she can identify almost all of them.  She also knows the sounds for most of the animals we can think of and is naming objects in her surroundings as well. 

While we were in Anguilla, Dadda taught Aurora how to say adventure, which comes out more like "Abee-da" for stroller rides.  Now it is one of her absolute favorite words.

While on vacation we also gave everyone in Matt's family a name, and she loves to play the "do you remember" game where we ask her if she remembers each member of the family and she excitedly repeats the name back to us.



She still loves being sung to, and now claps and says "yayyyy" at the end of every song.  It's pretty funny.



She also loves dancing, and her dancing is evolving from just bopping her head to the beat into dancing around in little circles.  Is it sad that Matt and I could watch her do that for hours?

She is developing more and more of an opinion.  She is starting to want to take off and explore while we are out and then gets super cranky when we tell her she has to stay and hold our hand.  





Now that she is getting more steady on her feet she is exploring speed.  She thinks it is really fun to get two hands to hold, lean into them and move her feet as fast as possible in a sort of supported run.

Sleep is going downhill again.  Early in the month she was having a hard time falling asleep at night, sometimes not until 7:30pm or so.  I don't think she isn't tired, I guess maybe she just needs a little alone time to unwind?  In Anguilla she was going to bed around 7:30pm without too much difficulty (except the stress of a new room which is to be expected) but did develop the wonderful habit of waking up around 5:20/5:30am...

Naps were getting a little longer for a few days but are now back to averaging about an hour.  Very recently we have been having some success, however, with going to her when she first starts to stir and rocking her back to sleep for another 20-30 minutes.

Aurora - Fifteen Months

A few of Aurora's new words this month :: Banana "Babayaya" Milk "Mats", Dolly "Daddy" Tutle "Durdle"

Aurora has starting to ask to go to the potty when we are out.  We aren't potty training her, but we have taken her to the potty since she was a tiny baby and it is very exciting to see her start to ask us to take her.

Matt and I took a CPR class at a friends house this month and brought Aurora with us.  It was so sweet to see her watching us all with the babies and then mimicking the CPR moves on them. 



She has all of the sudden become very interested in putting things inside other things.  She especially likes stacking her nesting boxes and transferring objects from one container to another. 



Aurora loves music!  She wakes up in the morning and asks for "dance dance" which is a kids station on Pandora.  She wants to listen to music all day long and bounce along to the beat.



She has started giving out kisses!  Love those sloppy wet ones she plants on us.

Aurora - Fourteen Months

  

Weight :: 21 pounds 9 ounces

The major milestone this month is -- SHE'S WALKING!

I swear she was taking a few steps months ago, but then I guess she decided that she didn't want to walk until she knew she could do it well.  I will be interested to see if this caution continues to be a personality trait as she gets older.
 


She seems to be adding new words all the time.  Some of the new ones this last month are Wyatt "Wyaa", doggie "daddy"

Signs :: potty, water, all done 

Aurora signing potty

Aurora loves giving kisses!  I'll admit they are sometimes extremely wet and on occasion she slips in a little tongue ;) but she still makes our hearts melt every time. 

Kissing Grumpa!

When Nanny and Grumpa came to visit they brought a cute little bunny cup, which was just the motivation Rora needed to learn how to drink out of a straw.




We have officially given up the morning nap so until we are able to push her nap late enough she is getting super tired by bedtime.  I was really hoping that her two one hour naps would translate to one two hour nap... but sadly that doesn't seem to be the case.  She is now averaging a one hour nap in the late morning. 




Nighttime sleep is generally from about 6:30pm until 6:30 or 7am.

Aurora - Thirteen Months

 

Weight :: 21 pounds 3 ounces

Words - up "uppa", baby "be-be", byebye "ba-ba", no "nah nah nah"

Signs - "eat/hungry" "more" for just about anything, trying "water"

Loving that she can direct us now.  She gets such a kick out of asking for "uppa" from one person then immediately asking "uppa" from someone else so that she gets passed back and forth.

I don't know how long she has been doing this, but the other day I noticed that she never holds a book upside down.  In fact, if you hand her a book upside down she will look at it funny, turn it right side up and then nod at it ;)



She loves climbing up into her little rocking chair with a book and just reading to herself.

Still cruising.  She can stand independently and I am pretty confident that she could walk if she wanted to but she doesn't seem to have any interest yet. 

She definitely doesn't eat all foods all days, but she has yet to consistently refuse anything in particular.  This month she has decided she loves bread.  Once the bread comes out she isn't really interested in anything else.

She is can feed herself with a  preloaded spoon and is using her sippy cup independently (we don't use a valve so prior to this she was just turning it over and dumping it out)

Sleep has been amazing at night.  Since daylight savings time she has started sleeping from 7pm until 7am.  I am loving the extra 30-45 minutes of sleep!

Unfortunately we went away at the beginning of the month and naps just haven't been the same since.  Not only is she crying a lot when we put her down but I also think she may be ready to give up her morning nap.  She has only taken two naps one out of the last 4 or 5 days.  I hope she will give me a good two hour nap in the middle of the day...

Aurora - One Year

One year?  How on earth did this happen already??

Height :: 30" (75%)

Weight :: 20 lbs 6 oz (40%)

Head Circumference ::18 3/4" (90%)

Honestly it doesn't seem possible that my girl could already be a year old. I remember someone telling me when she was born that every stage is absolutely amazing and you can't imagine how it could possibly get any better but it does.  I didn't believe it at the time as I was holding my little one week old in my arms -- but she was right!  It is incredible to watch her little mind coming alive, see her absorbing the world around her and starting to make sense of it all.  I can't wait to see what the next year holds for us.

This past month has been a huge one for developments.  She has always been a very social and aware baby, but she seems so much more so than she did even a month ago.  It is incredible.

Aurora can finally talk to us!  She is signing "more" and "milk" as well as saying mama and dada to the appropriate person.  Before this I swear everything fun was dada ;) I am amazed by how much she is showing she understands and how much she can communicate with her limited vocabulary.  She was eating dinner one night recently and started screaming that she wanted something so I waited until she was done, looked at her and said "Aurora Lynn how do you ask for more?" and she promptly responded with the "more" sign.  I was floored.  I hadn't actually expected her to comprehend or respond.  She really is becoming a little person!

She is still cruising and has even started taking a few steps in order to get from one hand hold to the next.

She has started handing us stuff when we ask for it and she is helping us get her dressed by holding out an arm or ducking her head into her shirt.

She has been big into sharing food lately.  I can hardly get the girl to eat her own food because all she wants to do is feed one of us.  It's terribly cute but often times the tidbits she is trying to share are less than appetizing.

She got a mini piano for her birthday from Grandma and Grandpa that looks exactly like her Daddy's.  She absolutely loves to sit on her little bench and play while he is playing on the big piano. 

Sleep continues to be pretty good except when she is teething.  She is just about ready to cut her two top front teeth.

We are making real progress with naps.  She has been going down extremely easily for both of her two naps.  I nurse her, read her a book, and sing to her before laying her down and leaving.  She rarely even makes a peep after I leave.