18 months old! - a stats post

My big girl's getting bigger...LOTS bigger!
At her 18 month appointment last Friday, here were the results:

27.19 pounds, which puts her at 84%
32 inches tall, which puts her at 59%
Her head puts her at 95% and Dr. D. said he had a big head as a child, too...which lead Dave to say, "You hear that, Lucy?  You're going to be a doctor!"

She got a couple of shots - the Hepatitis A vaccine and the flu shot - she did not care for these much at all...in fact, she really wasn't crazy about the doctor visit at all...
As always, though, Dave and I liked seeing Dr. Debuys - he always knows just the right thing to say!  When we're trying to calm Lucy down as she's freaking out just because,  God forbid, Dr. D. looked at her...he's telling us how proud he is of Lucy and her memory - she obviously associates the doctor and his office with shots and pain and very bad things.
I told him about the age email I got saying Lucy should be able to describe a scene and refer to herself by name and he was left scratching his head...he said, "Are you sure it said 18 months and not 18 years?"  It didn't sound right to us, either, but it was nice to have his confirmation.
He said a child her age should have about 5-6 words she routinely uses and Lucy has TONS more than that.  We know he sees lots of kids a day but he makes us feel like ours is the most special, talented, smart, adorable one he's ever seen (and we couldn't agree more)!
We told him how much Lucy loves her Signing Time DVDs and how many signs she uses and he was excited...then Dave asked him if all of the signing will hinder her speaking in any way (delay her)...Dave gave this example:
When we got to the doctor's office, Lucy walked over to the large fish tank and signed "fish" (Dr. D. interrupted to express his amazement that she knows that sign and said he's known very few 18 month old who could even sign fish, let alone spot a fish then use the sign) but Dave could not get her to verbally say "fish" - sometimes when we ask Lucy to say something, she does the sign for it instead...so she's kind of right, but not completely...
Dr. Debuys said it's true that sign language could prolong speech, but only a tiny bit...and that all of the benefits far outweigh that delay...but pointed out that Lucy is beyond where he expects her to be in the speech (and even signing!) department anyway so we have no worries!
(Update: since that doctor appointment, Lucy has found a way to bring up fish most every day...and she can sign it AND say it!  She has fish pj's that she often requests to wear to bed and she has a whale that she plays with in the tub...I can't get her to call it a whale, though, just "fish."  In fact, when I tell her it's a whale, she stares at me like I'm an idiot, then finally blinks and announces "fish" as she throws the whale...er, fish...into the water...)

The shots kicked her little booty this time around...
But this picture was taken soon after getting hom from our appointment so she was clearly still feeling a little spunky:

This girl is SUCH a climber!
The side effects listed for her shots indicated loss of appetite:


Not so much...

And headache, fever (never had one), sore/red eyes (she rubbed her eyes for a couple days after), cough (nope) and tiredness for 1-2 days.  In her case, the tiredness continues...on Saturday, we invited her cousins over to play...they were running a bit late but still arrived long before she normally naps...but just before they arrived, Lucy signed "sleep" and led me upstairs...I put her to bed but when our visitors arrived, I went up to check and she was still awake so I got her out...big mistake!  She was crabby and grouchy - and very sleepy.  Soon, I put her back to bed...Alli and I played with all of Lucy's toys (Dave, too, when he got home from his meet).

On Sunday Lucy, GranJan and I planned to catch a game or two of Aunt Amy's softball tournament but Lucy fell asleep on the way and it seemed a very bad idea to wake her up...
But these two got to partner up:

 Several days later, my girl is still struggling with the sleepiness...starting to wonder if she might be going through a growth spurt...she's been napping longer and earlier.


There has been a cat roaming the neighborhood and said cat and Lucy girl had some fun together recently:


Waving at the cat...

Staring contest...

  

Lucy has been in [desperate] need of a haircut for some time and we finally took her for one last week...she did not enjoy the experience...All I can say is - thank goodness it only took a couple of minutes and there was a lollipop waiting for her when it was over:

Pissed

A little happier...fresh, new hair cut!

  

We went to the library after the haircut and someone was a little bit mischievous...


"Who, me?"

They have a play area for kids with puzzles and blocks and books and puppets and all kinds of good stuff...but this little lady enjoys running up and down the aisles of books...and when I crouch down to catch her and whisper...well, she thinks that's a hilarious game and seems to think I am encouraging her to run and squeal...

At one point she was running down a row and I was following closely behind when a library employee gave me a stern look and mentioned, "You do know there's a children's section over there, don't you?" as she pointed out the designated area where we should have been...that was our cue to leave...

She has 16 teeth now!  Dr. D. seemed surprised by the mouthful...they keep popping up!

Her memory has been amazing us lately...on Sunday, GranJan brought Lucy her Halloween treat bag (yes, a little early).  For some reason Lucy wasn't interested in checking out its contents but I dumped it out and she inspected everything quickly but then moved on.  A couple of days later, I picked up one of the items and asked her where she got it and she smiled and said, "Nan nan!"

A snake is not one of the animal sounds we practice with her but there is a snake in one of her favorite books so she's familiar.  Last weekend we were at Gymboree and there were three giant stuffed snakes (never did figure out what was up with that - I don't think they were for sale so maybe they were just there for tiny shoppers to entertain themselves with?) and Lucy picked one up and was walking around saying "Ssssssss!"
She's starting to get so "real" with the way she plays...she walks her baby dolls around and makes them dance and jump, she likes to play with her Little People house and make the people go inside and she makes her toys jump and swim in the tub.

She's also learned how to make some new noises and loves to walk around clicking her tongue.

This girl knows what she wants...we have a pack of DumDums that we took to Dave's softball games so she and her friends could have some candy.  I keep the bag in a drawer in the kitchen and had no idea she knew that.  Earlier this week I was out so she and her daddy were home alone.  When I got home, he told me that at one point they were playing in the living room but Lucy left...she walked into the kitchen and he could hear a drawer open.  (She loves to pull open the garbage can drawer so we've gotten into the habit of checking it before we go to bed to make sure she didn't throw away something she shouldn't have.)  The next thing he knows, she's back in the living room holding the bag of DumDums signing/saying "candy."  He said he had no choice but to give her one (and find a new, higher spot to keep them.  The funny thing is, she is obviously tall enough to open that drawer but she is not tall enough to see inside.  My guess is, she randomly selected that one to open and reached her hand up to feel around and grab something and ended up with a jackpot).  Last night she opened a different drawer and was feeling around for candy and was a little honked off when she didn't find any and I told her no candy tonight anyway...

Lucy has a temper on her at times ("She has a short fuse...like someone else I know..." as Dave put it) but she honestly isn't too bad.  I was talking with my mom about that just this past weekend and she agreed that Lucy is kind of remarkable in that way.  I was commenting that Lucy is pretty easy to pull away from things she's interested in...like recently the 3 of us Meyers' were out running errands and we stopped in Tuesday Morning.  I was looking for something specific real quick so Dave chased after Lala.  She found a baby and was walking around with it but then Dave told her it was time to put it back...she did put it back - very nicely - and then picked up the one next to it!  But when they found me and I said it was time to go, she very easily agreed to hand over the doll so we could leave.

Jan and I were shopping in Monroe and they had a play area in the middle.  We let her play on it for a bit but it was super crowded and I was getting nervous so I told her we could go down the slide once more but then it was time to go.  We went down the slide and yes, she did try to head back over to the steps to go again but GranJan caught her and said it was time to move on and she was perfectly fine with that.

I've heard the "terrible twos" are a very real thing - she's not quite 2 yet but I've also heard they can start early and go late, ha!  Jan gave me a nice compliment (and a lot of hope!) saying she really didn't think we'd have a big problem with terrible twos.  (She may not have meant it as a compliment but anything good people say about my child, I'm going to take as a compliment!)

She's crazy and she knows it (this morning as she was helping me get ready for work - at 6:30am because, yeah, she was wide awake - I asked, "Who's super crazy?" and she smiled and pointed to herself...) and we love that about her!

She loves singing!