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14 Months old Physical Development: On January 12th she took five steps, just all of a sudden. She appeared to do it without thinking, she was standing at a low table, bent at the knees a couple times while standing, and then just took off towards daddy. She didn’t attempt more steps, despite our cheerleading, for another week. So we’re convinced that she KNOWS how to walk, but that she just chooses to crawl instead, since it's faster. On January 21st, as she neared her 15 month birthday, she started pushing herself up to a standing position from a squat, in the middle of the room without using anything to pull herself up on. From there she’d do a few "knee bends," and if she didn’t tumble back down onto her bottom, she’d attempt a step or two. She's tall enough to swipe things off of counter tops, climb up onto furniture, and otherwise get into great mischief. She climbs onto a black rocking chair that was mine when I was a child, and she makes a great effort to rock herself in it, swinging her head and shoulders forward and back to gain momentum. She also climbed the entire staircase on her first attempt (I hadn’t given her the opportunity previously). She climbs onto the coffee table, and has also tried to scale the low bookcases. She must be watched constantly! Language Development: When she climbs up onto the couch she becomes very talkative, as if she’s at her lectern and has an important address to make. She "oohs" and "aahs" and howls as she did when she was just two months old, but this time she looks at you intently, trying to impress upon you the importance of what she is saying. New words: Etta’s in a babbling stage, making a variety of sounds, but still has only a few recognizable words. "dada, mama, kitty, and ma’am (milk)" remain her favorites. Sleep: With teething there are some nights when she’s up three times, but mostly she’ll get up just once, around 3:00am. Her naps are a nightmare. She wants desperately to have just one nap a day, but she’s cranky when she does this. I’m trying to keep her to two one-hour naps a day, at 11:00am and 4:00pm. Getting her to sleep has become a real battle this month because I’m trying to wean her from needing to nurse herself to sleep. Since becoming pregnant last month, my milk supply has dwindled, and feeding her is very painful for me. It is as if there is ground glass in my nipples, and it hurts more now that it did when we were getting started when she was a newborn. Etta quickly drains me now, and gets angry as a hornet if the flow stops before she’s satisfied or asleep. I’m trying to reintroduce the bottle, but she screams at the sight of it, flings it across the room, and proceeds to tear at my shirt in frustration. It is as if the bottle reminds her that she’s not nursing. Sometimes Etta will flail and cry in my arms for an hour before finally passing out in exhaustion. I’m still not keen on "Ferberizing" (letting her cry herself to sleep alone in her crib), but sometimes it’s tempting. Eating: Since cutting her breastfeeding down she is now eating more table food. She adores cheese, even sharp cheddar. She continues to like green beans, peas, and jarred spinach. I make a fruit cocktail that she loves: chunks of fresh banana, rinsed canned mandarin orange slices, and canned pear or peaches. She’s very much into self-feeding, using a spoon or her fingers. She self-feeds yogurt and cottage cheese from a bowl using a spoon, and she’s getting less messy every day. New foods tried this month: French toast, chili beans, sole fish, ricotta cheese, grilled cheese sandwich. Other Events I bought Etta her first pair of shoes: brown suede t-straps, size 4 ½ medium. The buckles are secure, so I don’t have to worry about her tripping over an untied shoelace, and are easy to get on and off her feet. They were only $12.90, a real bargain for a shoe that is usually $40.00. She only wears her shoes about 20 minutes a day, when she's in a walking mood and wants to cruise around the room holding onto my hands or the furniture, or a little walker with wheels that we have. Otherwise she's in her Swedish moccasins or socks. But as the month wore on, whenever she’d spot her shoes sitting on the floor, she lunge for them and beg to have them put on her feet. She loves her shoes! We have latches on a lot of the kitchen cabinets, but not on the drawers, and she discovered the drawer where we keep the plastic sandwich bags, dish towels, and cooking cutters. It’s a constant battle to keep her out of the drawers, but installing latches on the oddly angled drawers is so far too much trouble. She can open a ziploc bag, even when it’s carefully sealed, so I have to keep her out of the pantry, too. She's cut 1 and 1/2 bottom molars, and two top molars and both top canines are poking through now, too. She chews on her fingers constantly and whines a lot. She used to hate the infant's Tylenol, but now she begs for it, and when she sees the bottle she throws her head back and opens wide like a baby bird waiting to be fed! It's hysterical! Needless to say, I don't even have to put a bib on her when I give her medicine anymore... she just gulps it down eagerly! |
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