Taking any photos of this child that aren't candid is absolutely brutal. Clearly I was torturing her trying to get her to lay on the dang quilt. While feeding her cereal and playing Mickey Mouse Clubhouse on my phone. I'm so freaking mean! Ha.
I made no effort to measure the little miss. If I was going to guess I'd say 30.5 inches and 21 pounds. We'll see how close I am when we go to her 15 month well check at the end of the month! She is wearing 12-18 month clothing, size four diapers and size four shoes. She has sprouted three new teeth, two on bottom and one molar, bringing her total to nine. I thought the other molars were coming in close behind, but nothing yet.
Thea is finally starting to sprout some legit hair. I'm pretty sure Ryann and Elsie were both around 8 months old when the hair started going over the headbands. Thea is just now getting there. I can't believe how long it is taking! On the bright side, even though she keeps getting bigger and doing bigger kid things, the baldness keeps her looking like a baby. I'll take it.
Sleep can still be a sore subject in our house. We've recently switched to one nap a day around 12:30, and she'll nap for somewhere between 1.5-3 hours. You never know what you're going to get. Same goes for night time. Thea goes to bed between 7:45-8:15. Sometimes she sleeps through the night until 6:15 or 6:30am, and sometimes she wakes up and won't go back to sleep. I try so so hard not to feed her at night, but I usually cave if she has been up for 90 minutes or so. In general she cries when she wakes up, I ignore her for a while, then I try to rock her back to sleep. If that doesn't work I'll lay her back in her crib and she screams at me for a while longer. Very very occasionally she'll lay down and go back to sleep without me nursing her. Really in the grand scheme of things sleep hasn't bothered me too much. But the fact that I'm still nursing her to sleep and that she isn't sleeping through the night means I can't confidently leave her overnight yet. My mom got to experience her middle of the night antics firsthand this weekend. Sorry mom!
I'm fully aware that I really should stop nursing her to sleep. For many reasons. But I LOVE that cuddle time with her. We are so go go go all the time. I love holding her when she is calm and quiet so much. And up until now the times that I really need her to go to sleep without me are few and far between. Still, it has been 14+ months since Chris and I have gone on a real date. We haven't left the house together for more than an hour, and it is usually to run some sort of errand, or with a group of people. We're due for a date night, stat! I'm hoping to leave Thea with Chris and have him put her to bed, just to see what happens. Hoping for the best.
Meal times more or less suck these days. Thea loves food, but a very select number of foods. And if you put something in front of her that she doesn't like she pretty much loses her mind. It is ridiculous and so annoying. She loves blueberries, strawberries, peaches, mac n cheese, deli meat, cheese, pizza, peanut butter & jelly, bread, waffles, pancakes, sweets and squeeze pouches. Goldfish, cheerios and other snack things of that nature are also a hit. Beyond that, no dice. Vegetables are evil, so are most meats. She freaked out when we tried to serve her spaghetti. So damn annoying. She still does a pretty good job with whole milk, but definitely isn't drinking it in excess amounts.
Thea is trying to talk more and more all the time. I love hearing all of her little words! Baby is my favorite. 'Bay-beeeee'. So sweet. She says mommy, daddy, grammy (mammy), papa, Elsie (El-eee), Ryann (Rah rah), waffle (wah-fuh), milk, hungry (hun-wee), nigh nigh, bye bye, puppy, ball and book (they sound the same, buh), help, please, and probably a few others that I can't think of right now. She also can follow directions pretty well (when she wants to of course). For example, I can ask her, "Do you see the lego over there? Can you put it away in that box?" And she will comply. She can bring me random things that I ask for.
Her love of books is still slowly growing. Some really short books with a word per page, she'll ask me to read over and over again. Flaps also make her attention infinitely better. Surprisingly she has fallen pretty hard for Goodnight Moon. It is a good book, of course, but she LOVES it. Asks for it anytime we are in her room.
Miss Thea is becoming such a little character. Not that anyone would be surprised, her sisters pack a lot of personality, why would I expect her to be any different? I swear I could just sit around and watch her play all day long. Kissing on her babies, playing peek a boo in the teepee, climbing on my back whenever I lay down, haha, she is just entertaining. She knows just when to give me hugs to get me to do something. She playfully teases her sisters. Running is her favorite, she rarely ever just walks. Walking is way too slow. She mimics everyone all the time. The other day while carrying her around I check my step count on my fitbit. She glanced at me, then tipped her wrist as if she was checking her own watch. I burst out laughing.
It is a good thing she is so damn cute, because she is such a trouble maker! And must be out to give me a heart attack. I swear every time I turn around she has climbed up onto something she shouldn't be on. When I catch her she giggles like crazy, she knows she isn't supposed to be climbing! The most recent ridiculous one was after we'd been to the grocery store. I set a package of toilet paper on the floor and started unloading groceries. When I turned back around she was standing on top of the package. Also unrolling toilet paper and emptying out wipes must be some of the greatest joys in the world. I honestly can't remember what I was in the middle of, but something that I couldn't immediately put down, when I spotted Thea throwing wipes out of a package one by one. As soon as I said her name she started furiously unloading them as fast as she could before I could cut her off. Stinker.
She loves to dance. Whenever she hears music she has to bop around. I'm pretty sure her favorite song is Handclap. You have to admit it is pretty catchy. If I play it she gets all excited and definitely starts clapping! Thea also likes to try and play soccer just like her sisters. She loves to kick a ball around the playroom, or outside when we're watching a game.
Love you baby girl.