It's the little things

With Melanie, we are watching her grow and develop in slow motion. With Julie, she just did things so fast and you never really thought about what all went into accomplishing every milestone. 

Melanie has been fun today, we have been working on stacking blocks, and I was sitting there just stacking them while saying on, and she would take them off, and I would say off. Eventually she started to stack them herself. This activity before never lasted very long because she just wanted to do something else. We did this for a while and then Julie came over and started stacking blocks up high, and Melanie is really getting into playing and interacting more with Julie and others. Melanie would grab a block and hand it to Julie, and Julie would grab the block and tell Melanie thank you and stack it on top of her other blocks. And Melanie would hand her another block. It was so fun to watch, in the process of grabbing blocks she grabbed a glow seahorse and also handed that to Julie. So fun to watch them interact more together. So, now Melanie is putting objects in and taking them out of a container, stacking, and she is using and understanding more words. She does a lot of other things to, just hard to update this as often as I should, so these are the newest accomplishments right now.

The two words she uses right now are "go", which she understands and uses all the time, and "Dad", her newest word. He came home from work today and when he walked in Melanie instantly said, "Dad" when she saw him. And Melanie is a Daddy's girl, especially at nights lately when she wakes up, she will look at the door wanting Daddy if I am in the room with her putting her back to bed. So, if she doesn't settle right down, Rob will come in and if she won't drink her milk with me, she will drink it all down if Rob is holding her.

Just before bedtime, Julie got upset saying, "Melanie ruined it", and I told her to come over and show me. She brought a paper over to me that was wet and had a hole in it from the wet paper being rubbed. She didn't yell or get mad a Melanie as she usually would do, but came and talked to me.

Melanie - 25 months

Melanie has been vocalizing a lot more lately. We can say, Ready, Set, and she will say "Go". It is so cute. She has a noise machine in her room that has a projector on it that displays animals on the ceiling, and some nights when she wakes up I turn it on and sit in the chair with her. As each animal shows up, I will say, "What's That?", and then I will say the animal. She makes the sound of the elephant when we get to that one, but she will also say, "What zat" really quickly after I say it. We also are starting a "It Takes Two to Talk" program, it is through the Up to 3 program so it goes along with our monthly visits. It is an 8 week course, with video recordings of me and Melanie interacting. It will be every Wednesday morning for about 2 hours. It should be good, we had orientation this last Wednesday and the course starts the beginning of April. So excited to hear her talk more. 

Started sitting her on the potty a few times a day and she is awesome. She usually goes poop twice a day and has basically got something out every time we sit her on the potty. I sign "potty" while asking if she needs to go, and you can see her trying. We joke that she will be potty trained before Julie. We will see how it goes, kind of held off today since she was whining a little yesterday when I would put her on their.

She is better at sleeping at night now, only occasionally waking up.

Doing better at walking, she prefers to walk with us holding her hands. She is not too fond of the walker right now, gets frustrated and mad if she tips a little or falls. She has also been flinging herself backward again, not really when walking, but when we are holding her, or she is sitting on the floor. Very intentional. 

 Playing in Julie's fort.

 Loves her bath time, whenever the bathroom door is open she quickly makes her way in there and heads straight for the tub. We usually have the door shut, but sometimes we forget. Even if it is open just a crack, she knows.

 Rob was in Ohio for a week, and the night he came home, he came in when she woke up in the middle of the night, and then I put her down. She woke up again and just cried and cried, she kept looking at the door. So, I said, "Do you want to go see Daddy?", she stopped crying and said "uh, huh". I asked again and she said the same thing, so I took her in. She just snuggled next to him and was so happy. Wrapped her arms around his neck and rubbed his head. Sweetest thing ever. She missed her Daddy.

 She seems to always be in the kitchen these days, and so I will feed her food while we sit on the floor.

 Playing together, this doesn't happen to often, but love it when Julie plays well with Melanie and tries to make her laugh.

 Melanie found a pillow, she just stayed there and laid her head down.

 She has moved up a drawer now in the kitchen, my kitchen floor is always a mess. She has so much fun going through my drawers.

 I put the BIG dog in the front room, and he is so soft and cuddly, the kids just climbed all over him. Julie just laid there and rested, I think she was tired.

 She has moved up to the highest drawer in her bedroom. Clothes everywhere.

 Quietly playing after breakfast, Julie doing puzzles that she is loving and doing really well by herself now, and Melanie reading a book or rather flipping through a book. She loves to look at books.

 Another new thing, we found her on the couch the other day. Got up there all by herself and was so proud when we saw her.

 Went to the Library to return some books and get some new ones. I got both kids out and Julie was standing next to the stroller and I strapped Melanie in. I locked the car door, and closed the automatic closing door. I was picking up the library bag I had set on the ground when I heard Julie kind of frantically yelling, I turn and look right as Melanie's 4 fingers get closed in the door. (I think Julie saw what was happening and actually tried to pull Melanie's finger away). I knew I had locked the car but tried opening it anyway. Then in a state of panic, I set my purse down frantically grabbed my keys to open the door. Both kids are screaming at the top of their lungs, one in pain, and the other just scared. I hurried and unbuckled Melanie and strapped her back into the car. I look through the window and see Officer Hawkes walking into the building looking this way, probably wondering if he needed to come see what was going on. He didn't, I turn to Julie and try to calm her down and ask her to get into the car. I fold the stroller up and stick it in the car. I get Julie all strapped in and I hurry and run the books in to the Library and we head for home. I called Rob in the parking lot and talked with him on the way home, Melanie had calmed down a lot. I could see her fingers, and she was bending them and so they seemed to be fine. Got home and Julie was still crying but Melanie was fine. You could only see two little marks on her middle fingers. Later that night, there was a red line across all her fingers, but she was fine. So grateful it wasn't worse.

 I loves Melanie's hair, the color changed depending on the lighting and everything, but I just love it. She gets compliments all the time. I hope it stays this color.

What a beautiful gal she is!

Melanie 24 months

Measurements:

Weight:     24.2lbs     (25%)

Height:     36 1/2 in.     (97%)

Head:     19in.     (70%)

We had a good doctor visit and she is progressing and making improvements. I thought she would have shots, but I guess we got them done at her 18 month appointment. That was wonderful, although we still left with a crying baby because she was standing holding onto my legs and I was talking to the doctor and she fell and bonked her head. I didn't see her fall until I heard her head hit the ground. Darn it! Melanie was giving him the sweetest smiles, so fun.

She is following her growing curve just nicely. 

I had written the rest of this post out and somehow it didn't save so I have to rewrite it and hope I say everything I said before. 

Melanie loves to flip through books, she doesn't sit still long enough to read them  to her but she will flip through them for a while. She likes the paper books, the ones that can rip and are not baby friendly. She does like board books also. Both kids are loving library books right now.

Melanie is more interested in patting Julie's back and touching her hair in these pics.

She doesn't pull hair anymore, she now likes to just pat it and grit her teeth or rub her face into my hair while gritting her teeth. Strange kid, she loves hair.

Loves my kitchen cupboards and always seems to be right under my feet when I am making dinner. We had a gate with Julie but it was a pain to keep climbing over, and then we got one with a door but it is nice to have it gone. And we figure with her being behind, she needs to be able to explore.

Julie always seems to use Melanie as a pillow when she is on the floor.

Trying to climb up onto the chair, hefting herself up using the hand crank on the side of the chair.

She also loves to lay behind the chair and rock the recliner with her feet.

This is a common thing lately.

She is such a joy and so fun to watch grown up. It seems like in slow motion.

Folding arms

A few days ago we were saying the prayer before lunch, and I was holding Melanie. In the middle of the prayer she brought her arm forward and then held onto her other arm and was folding her arms, she even bowed her head, it was the sweetest thing. So fun when they do new things.