18 Months

I've slacked off on the monthly photo shoot/update posts since Cal turned one, but oh-so much has changed since June, I felt like an update was in order.  (Even if it's being posted when she's nearly 19 months!)  It's truly amazing to watch a little person learn and grow and develop a personality all her own.  What a miracle!  And what a blessing to be a part of it all.

Probably the biggest change we've seen in recent months is that Cal has finally (Finally!) put crawling-as-a-primary-means-of-locomotion behind her.  She took her first official steps while we were in Utah over Thanksgiving (when she was about 17 and a half months old).  It took her a few days of drills with Gregg after we got home, but once she caught on, she never looked back.  The best part (for her to do and for us to watch) is that she can now carry so many things around the house because her hands are no longer occupied by crawling.  What a revelation!  She'll carry stuffed animals and snowmen, hair clippies (hers and mine), books, balls, blankets - anything and everything and all of it at once.

She has become quite a vocal and articulate little girl.  I stopped counting in late October when she surpassed 100+ words in her vocabulary and she's only added to and improved upon that base since then.  Some of my favorite words and phrases from her recently include: 

• nanatch (sandwich)
• fwing (swing)
• cickies (cookies)
• barf (scarf)
• piany (piano)
• walking/dancing (said while walking/dancing)
• moosh (moose)
• yights (lights)
• man (snowman)
• abbo-sauce (applesauce)

She's now starting to put a few words together into two word sentences like "all done", "yights on", "arm in", "go walk", "turn it", etc.

She can tell you the sound of practically any farm animal (and a handful of birds and jungle creatures, too).  She can also identify at least 6 different shapes (square, triangle, circle, star, x, and heart) (thanks to her little shape bucket pictured above).  We're working on colors, but they seem to be harder to grasp (everything is "red" right now).

She's able to say the name of pretty much everyone in the family (including aunts, uncles, and cousins) . . . except for Melia (for some reason that one is the hardest, go figure).  And not only can she repeat them after us, but she can also recognize them in photos and procure the correct name to go with the face on the page.

She's also got a pretty awesome memory, especially for her beloved stories.  We've made it a game to stop reading (or reciting) a story (or poem) at strategic points where she will promptly fill in the missing word.  Sometimes she'll sit near her ever growing pile of books and flip through the pages "reading" aloud to herself.  My favorite as of late:

Cal's Version of The Three Little Kittens

mittens

What?!

meow, meow

pie

Cal is such a happy baby, despite still being kind of a stinker as far as sleeping goes.  She has her good nights/naps, but I think we can probably count on our fingers the number of days she's truly "slept through the night" without ever waking up.  Our most recent hurdle has been her sudden hatred/fear/refusal of her crib.  I don't know where that came from.  But for now we've stopped fighting it - for all of our sakes (especially Gregg's, I'd say, since the fight was making Cal and me especially cranky).  So now she sleeps on a twin mattress on the floor.  And for anywhere from an hour to most of the night, one of us is usually laying/trying to sleep next to her.  It's not ideal or what I would prefer, but I'm learning (slowly, very slowly sometimes) that I'm not always in charge.  I've got to pick my battles.  Callie's sleeping habits seem to be very much like her Auntie Mugs's were when she was a baby, so says my mom (and my memory).  And Megan is a great sleeper now at age 18.  So I guess there's hope.  :)

Her loves: books, balls, blocks (she's awesome at knocking down stacks, but she's surprisingly great at making them, too - even taller than her!), trucks, baby story time at the library ("ah-wee!"), singing songs (she always says "yay" at the end of any song - even the hymns at church), walks, swinging, phones (even though she knows they're off limits), counting, baths (she really loves to play with the water as it's filling up the tub or the whirlpool that forms when the water is draining), kids (especially her cousins), opening cupboards, snacks: oranges, graham cracker with peanut butter "sandwiches", raisins/craisins, and cookies are her favorites lately, blankies, skyping (even though the people on the other end may question this sometimes since she never holds still very long while we're talking), snowmen, getting the mail, dogs, keys, unshelving the dvds, church (though she doesn't love sitting still, she adores walking around the aisles and up the ramp to the stand, as well as playing with the chalkboard magnets in the primary room and seeing all the kids and people), "sauce" (this can be any condiment we have on the table - salad dressing, sour cream, salsa, etc - she's got to have some on her plate, too!), soccer, the vacuum ("bacoom").

Her hates: sleeping in her crib, tape/stickers/bandaids/sticky things, tape measures, being strapped in her carseat for too long (anything longer than an hour is too long usually), milk, having her nose wiped (but what kid does, really?), being poked and checked at the doctor's office.

She's learning how to be a really good helper.  She will clean up her toys, books and tupperware cupboard when we ask (usually).  She loves to take things to the table and put them on (like her plate and fork, napkins, hot pads and serving spoons).  She especially loves to help unload the dishwasher (even when I'm trying to load it) and we're just starting to work the other way on putting things in.  Her newest helping trick has been with me while I'm baking/cooking.  She always wants to bring the chair over from the table so she can stand next to me and dump in the flour or spices.  I remember doing the same thing with my mom, so this is an especially fun development for me.  Our favorite "chore" of all, though?  She now carries her own dirty diapers to the garbage for us when we're done changing her.  (I learned that one from the Farrers with Cohen and I stored it away because I thought they were brilliant!)

Finally, her latest stats:
height: 32 inches (up 2 inches since September)
weight: 19.3 lbs (8th percentile) (up 2 lbs since September)
head circumference: they never told me, but the nurse did measure her because Cal screamed like she was getting her head cut off while the tape measure was out
clothes size: anywhere from 6 months (the long sleeve onesie above) to 24 months depending on the brand/style/item
shoe size: 6-12 months (her robeez and moccs) or 3 (her boots, which are too big) (she has pretty tiny little feet)
number of teeth: 12 (6 downstairs and 6 more upstairs on the upper floor)
cuteness level: a million and a half out of 10



Watch Callie grow:  12 months | 11 months | 10 months | 9 months | 8 months | 
7 months | 6 months | 5 months | 4 months | 3 months | 2 months | birth