Zombie baby sez: Your brains are next
Fashion baby sez: I hate what you're wearing
Grumpy baby sez: Get off my lawn!
Kissy face baby sez: KISSES
Skeptical baby sez: Bish, please.
14 year old baby sez: I'm too busy texting my boyfriend to talk to you.
DEAR GOD please save me from my teenage toddler.
Yesterday was Caroline’s 15 month well-baby check-up. She got a finger poke and two shots and was pretty pissed off about it for about 20 minutes but forgave me thanks to chicken nuggets and some fruit snacks. She is willing to forgive almost ANYTHING for fruit snacks. They didn’t mention anything about her lead test results so I’m guessing they came back fine, although I’m kicking myself for not ASKING. Lead poisoning isn’t something you want to screw around with. I don’t have a specific reason to be concerned (you know, besides living in a house that’s probably full of lead paint) but I’d rather know YES or NO for sure instead of assuming no news is good news.
15 month stats:
Height: 28 1/2 inches (about the 10th percentile)
Weight: 20 pounds, 9 ounces (25th percentile)
Head circumference: 46.8 cm (75th percentile)
Big head, teeny tiny baby. She continues to freak people out in public by climbing, running, standing on tall things and generally acting like a toddler while still looking like she’s barely old enough to be walking. Evan was 20 pounds at only 6 months (HOLY CRAP!) and 23 pounds and 31 inches at 15 months, so it looks like Caroline is destined to be a gymnast or a jockey instead of a linebacker. Or maybe a rocket scientist, since obviously her brain is gigantic. I kind of love that she’s a peanut though – it’s saved me a fortune in baby clothes.
If I may venture into “horribly braggy mommy blogger” territory for a minute, I was kind of annoyed the doctor wasn’t more impressed with Caroline’s skills. I know there’s a huge range of normal when it comes to developmental milestones, but when I told her my 15 month old can follow directions like “Go find your milk and bring me the cup” she could act a LITTLE bit like it’s a big deal. That’s on the BabyCenter chart for 22 months! Tell me she’s super smart! Encourage me to sign her up for gifted baby classes immediately! VALIDATE ME!!!! The doctor was mildly impressed when after using her stethoscope to listen to Caroline’s heart and lungs Caroline took it from her and tried to listen to her own heart. Maybe she wasn’t impressed as much as she was blown away by the ridiculous cuteness because OMG SO CUTE AND SMART.
Ahem. Sorry. It’s just hard not to do cartwheels of joy when I talk about my kids sometimes. I’m awful.
In other news, the doctor said she’s getting her molars, so this is probably the LAST time I’ll gush about how awesome she is for a few weeks.
I’d like to believe my vacation was so magical it totally changed my life, but I suspect daylight savings time and the freakishly warm weather we’re having is to thank for my good mood. There’s nothing like tiny dirty bare baby feet to help me not care at all about the laundry I still haven’t put away. Heck, I can’t even be bothered to care about putting on real pants since we’re too busy swinging on the porch to leave the house.
Caroline has decided she hates clothes and rips them off while screaming bloody murder every morning…but hey, that’s fine! Whatever! Be free, naked toddler, run and feel the breeze against your chubby belly! Enjoy it while you can, since it will probably be 35 degrees next week. Damn you Connecticut.
I did convince her to wear one of my old sundresses today, so of course I documented it with 200 pictures. Ok, I’m lying, 248 pictures. She might be the most adorable thing I’ve ever seen in my entire life. If we could figure out how to power cars using squeeees of cuteness, Caroline could solve this gas price problem in a single afternoon.
(Pictures are unedited except for size – I’ve been inspired by Mandy and Jill to work on my shooting-in-manual skills again.)
Uh oh, dirty feet
—————————————————————————–
P.S. I TOTALLY forgot to pick a winner for my Changing the Universe giveaway before I left and I’m so sorry. I let Random.org choose for me and it picked #12, Kim from Try It Mom! Congrats Kim, I’ll send Nicci your email so she can help you collect your winnings. And if you didn’t win, may I suggest heading over to the shop and buying youself a special treat to cheer yourself up?
Linking up with Miss Elaine because it’s her birthday and she’s awesome!
All of the photos for this post are labeled “Caroline 16 months” because this morning I asked E “How old is Caroline now?” and he said “16 months”. It sounded right enough until I went to look up her 15 month milestones and realized THIS was her 15th monthday and I was getting ahead of myself. I guess when you abandon your baby for a week to go on vacation you forget things like her age. At least I got her name right.
(Speaking of vacation, I’ll be back to annoy the crap out of you will a zillion vacation pictures soon. You are going to HATE IT.)
From all of my parent’s reports, Caroline handled my absence pretty well. There might have been some crying and she had a few problems staying asleep all night but she luuuuuuvs her MorMor and Bumpa and is never going to forgive me when they go home. She ate like a horse and didn’t crack her head open so I’d say it was a raging success. Although it doesn’t really matter one bit, since I am NEVER LEAVING HER AGAIN. That week was fantastic but holy cow did I miss my babies.
Caroline is officially in the middle of a growth spurt and can no longer stand in front of our fridge when I open the doors or she’ll get conked right in the noggin. This makes her extremely angry, since standing in front of the fridge begging for food is one of her favorite hobbies. Other hobbies include jumping up and down on top of tall things and giving people heart attacks.
Likes include grapes, juice, clapping, kicking, standing on one leg, jumping, somersaults, slides, dogs, her grandparents, being held, OUTSIDE, animals, stairs, singing, basketball, hockey, dancing, noodles, apples, squeezy food pouches, shouting really loud and chairs.
Dislikes are bedtime, falling on her head, not being allowed to drink bath water, and not having food within reach constantly.
Cruisin'
Get out of my way!!
Crazy warm weather means bare feet on the patio
15 Month Milestones (from BabyCenter, as usual)
Mastered Skills (most kids can do)
Plays with ball – She’s an excellent kicker, but her throwing skills could use some work. No way she’s getting recruited for the Red Sox with her lousy aim.
Uses three words regularly – “Bah” means 15 different things, all involving food. But she also says mama, daddy, dog, hat, kitty, hi, and sings the Bubble Guppies theme song (sort of). She also signs hat, fish, more and please.
Walks backward – Yes. I made her do it so I wouldn’t accidentally lie to the interwebs.
Emerging Skills (half of kids can do)
Scribbles with a crayon – Yes, although she’d rather eat them.
Runs – Fast.
Adopts “no” as his favorite word – I have yet to hear her say “no”, although when she MEANS “no” there is absolutely no doubt about it. LITERALLY minutes after I wrote that she looked into my face and said “NO” when I asked if she wanted a carrot. Goodie.
Advanced Skills (a few kids can do)
“Helps” around the house – She likes to sweep, throw things away and pick up toys.
Puts his fingers to his mouth and says “shhh” – She’s a super good mimic, so I probably could get her to do that…but I haven’t seen her do it yet.
Somehow I don’t think that meme is going to catch on quite as well as Wordless Wednesday.
No babies were harmed in the climbing of these very very hard stone steps.
What? I'm not touchin' it. YOU CAN'T SEE ME.
There were a bunch of curtains set up for what I am assuming was an outdoor theater production in this space. It made for some fun peek-a-boo games.
Don't worry, there are big stone steps right below that edge so if he fell he might break a bone but at least he won't drown in the pond.
PEEK A BOO!
Pictures taken at the Conn College Arboretum, where we have Stroller Strides on Mondays.
