Happy 17 month birthday!!

Wow, we can't believe Maddie is 17 months already. It has been a while since we gave some updates on what she is up to. She was sick again last week. Uggh. At least it was just a cold, but she was so kind and shared it with both of us. She has also had some major changes to her daily schedule. For almost a month she was down to just one nap a day, without changing her bedtime of around 7PM and waking up at 6 AM sharp. Then she started getting really cranky in the afternoons, throwing lots of temper tantrums, and so finally we started giving her a second nap again. Now she takes two naps, but she pushed her bed time back until around 8 or 8:30 PM and she sleeps in until 7:30 or 8 AM! This has been great so she can spend more time with Tony in the evenings, and we can get a little more shut eye. However, it limits the amount of activities we can do during the day since she is still needing two naps. Oh the trade offs!


As far as development, Maddie is communicating a whole lot more. She is so fun to talk to. She babbles constantly and makes her needs known through speaking and sign language. She says "what's that?" and points to everything so we can label it for her. She has a book of Baby's First 100 words that she reads several times a day and has quite a long attention span. We name all the body parts, the foods, the animals etc. New words include: shoes, water, and ouch. Her newest sign is "owie". She is fixated on Tony's injured leg and asks me many times a day about Dada's owie. She is also really fun to talk on the phone with now as she will actually talk.



Physically she is growing a lot and I can't wait to get her official measurements at her 18 month check up which is scheduled in September. She is also really working on her jumping and climbing skills. She knows how to throw her arms up in the air for "touch down" and she will flex when you ask to see her muscles. She is wearing a size 6 shoe and 24 month clothing!!! She has 4 of her molars but none of her eye teeth yet. Her hair is super light due to the time in the sun, and it is very curly in back. Her eyes have changed to a beautiful hazel/brown/green. She loves to giggle and she is not shy about asking to see your belly and give it a kiss.


Maddie is very curious and precocious. She knows what she wants, and she is always watching to learn new things, even some things that we don't necessarily want to teach her yet! She gets her little hands into anything we leave out, and she has learned to grab things off of the counter. She is obsessed with shoes and she carries them around and demands that I wear a certain pair. She likes to say "uh oh" even when things aren't an accident (like throwing food off of her high chair tray). She is also very interested in how the straps on her carseat, high chair etc work. She wants to sit (unstrapped) and play with the straps for long periods of time. This is not so much fun for me because she has to be supervised closely if she is not strapped in. For instance, we went to the park last week and she sat in the swing, unstrapped, and played with the straps for over a half an hour, and screamed bloody murder if I suggested we try a different activity.

Maddie has also developed her social skills. She says hi and bye and waves enthusiastically to everyone she sees in public. She begs for attention from people who aren't looking at her, and then when people do look at her she gets coy and pretends to be shy. She is not shy at all, and she loves playing with other kids on the playground. Sometimes she watches for a while before she joins in, but she loves other kids.

Basically, Maddie is tons of fun to be around, she is super social, and she makes everyone around her smile!


Here are a couple of new pics! Enjoy!!