17 Months

Sara Kate, you are 17 months old! What have you been up to?

- You are doing so good at school! You are doing better with the separation anxiety when I drop you off, and you walk in like a pro, although sometimes you get distracted by the indoor slide and the balls/toys inside. But everyone at your school just loves you and says hi to you and says how cute you are. :-) You're day is a little something like this: I wake you up around 6:45 and get you dressed, and I drop you off between 7:15 and 7:30. You have breakfast that I pack for you around 8:30 (usually some combo of a breakfast bar, yogurt, or a banana) and you drink milk or juice/water. You have lunch between 11 and 11:30 and you eat whatever they are having at school and you drink milk with lunch. You go down for a nap after lunch and it lasts between 11:30-1:30, usually about an hour and a half. After nap is snack time between 2-2:30, which is crackers or goldfish or animal crackers or veggie straws, and you have water with your snack. You get picked up between 4:30-5:30 and we head home! You're day is so busy and you are always very tired by the end of the day!
- Because you are just napping an hour and a half per day, you're bed time is around 8:15. We start bed time routine around 8, and you are normally asleep by 8:45. And you sleep great all night long. On the weekends you wake up between 7-8 but have been doing well about playing in your crib for 30 minutes to an hour. You have also become a great napper on the weekends! - You have been a great eater lately, but I know that can change at a moments notice. :-) You've been eating what we eat for dinner with no problems. I think you may be going through a growth spurt, also...you seem to want to snack all the time. You are doing great signing 'more' when eating, too. It has made meal time much more enjoyable with you not being so demanding and yelling for another bite.
- You have a new tooth (the bottom right tooth beside the bottom front tooth), and you have a couple more that are soooo close to breaking the skin. You haven't been terribly unhappy about teething but you are drooling quite a bit and you do NOT want us to brush your teeth at night!
- We think you are such a smart girl. You do lots of things that seem 'smart,' but one thing you do is when it's dinner time we can say, "go get a bib" and you go to your room, get a bib and try to put it on while walking to your high chair, and then you try to climb into your high chair. It cracks us up.
- You love blocks or anything you can stack or sort. You love books and will back into your daddy's lap to 'read.' And you will sit and read to yourself alot of times. You are really into balls, too.
- You love your animals or any other animals we may see, like at the park. Cora is sweet at lets you climb over her, you like to chase Cody, and you like to just plain harass Kacie by pulling her tail or her feet. We have been trying to teach you to 'pet nice!'
- You LOVE outside and we spend time outside every day, especially now that it's not 100 degrees. We have been going to the park alot lately, and you just love it there. You will play non stop, up and down steps, down the slide, running through the grass...you have a ball outside!
- You are running now! You will just take off, moving your little feet as fast as they can go. Sometimes your feet get ahead of you and you fall, which results in skinned knees yesterday morning.
- You talk up a storm, and you get very intent when you are tell us stories. You can say hi, bye-bye, night-night, mama, dada, Poppa, uh-oh, duck, doggy, this, that one, cat, hat, more, bath, baby, ball, again, and yum (or mmm, when it comes to food). Not that you can say all those words perfectly, but you know what you mean and we know what you mean, too. In general, lots of the words you say start with the 'd' sound. The other night you were trying to tell me something and I couldn't understand what you were saying. It made you frustrated that I wasn't understanding you. I'm ready for the day that I can clearly understand what you are saying because you talk alot!!
- Your little personality is really coming through. You can be very demanding and strong willed when you want something or get an idea in you mind, and you can get very upset if things don't go exactly the way you want (like if you more snack and we don't give in or if you are stacking blocks and they fall before you are ready, you can get upset if you are really tired). You are so silly and funny, and you know when you have an audience and you are a HAM! And you can be so sweet and loving and cuddly and you just hug my neck so tight.
- You're hair is growing more and more, and it's just the lightest shade of blonde! It curls up in the back and sticks up on top, and you can have some crazy hair when I get you up in the mornings!! I know one of these days you'll have enough hair to have braids and pig tails. :-) - You are still wearing 12 month clothes and actually wore some 9 month stuff recently (see picture below). You are so petite! You are in still 12 month pajamas, too. - You are still in size 2 shoe in Carter's brand and size 3 shoe in Payless brand. I saw little baby Tom's recently and they were so cute. You might have to get a pair for the fall/winter. :-)
- You are still in a size 3 diaper but we are getting ready to move up to size 4.
- You are such a beautiful and funny and sweet little girl, and we just love you so much. You are definitely the apple of our eyes!