18 Months of Bree

I can't believe our "Babe" is getting so old!  She is NOT getting big, but she sure is learning a lot and developing into quite a personality.  At her 18 month check-up she was 18 pounds and 30.5 inches tall.  I struggle with clothes for her because length wise she would be in the 18 month zone but weight wise she is only in the 12 month zone.  So, she wears a lot of leggings as they seem to fit her in the waist and length.  She is still very much a mommy's girl but she has graduated to not immediately crying when someone walks in our house.  Baby steps!  She loves to climb and slide.  In fact, I think she's my first kid whose favorite thing to do at the playground isn't swing.  She would much prefer to slide.  And she wants to do anything that the boys are doing.  Not only did she decide to try bounce houses at Finn's birthday party, but yesterday she even insisted that she be allowed to ice skate with them.  I wish I could have taken a picture but I was so focused on making sure she didn't fall.  She did great, though, and was so cute in her tiny ice skates!

Over the last few months, Bree's vocabulary has grown immensely.  She now has at least 50 different words that she says.  Some of those include:  mommy, daddy, papa, Kai ("Dai"), Finn ("Sinn"), brother, cheese, done, again (sounds very much like done), milk ("dadum"), blankie ("diddy"), Me, slide, bus, shoes, socks, poptart (yep, she does have a word for that!), dinner, show (for a TV show), touch (a game that she created that she loves to play), eye, bath, wash, snacks, treat, oww!, bandaid, in, back, diaper, wipe, dirty, bike, hat, bye, juice, watch, ring, beads (what we call her necklaces), and tie.  I will admit that she doesn't speak very clearly, but we can understand her and know what she is saying even if no one else does.  It's so fun to hear her little voice.  She also has a few phrases, such as "There it is!" and even "My turn".  Those are very hard to decipher, but once again, in context, we have heard her say those several times.

I'm been very grateful that she seems to sleep through the night most nights.  She tops out at 10 1/2 hours very consistently, which I find funny.  Only when she has been cutting teeth has she gone consecutive days without sleeping through.  She now has 11 teeth (4 on the top middle, 4 on the bottom middle, and 3 of her 1 year molars), so only 9 more to go!  Wahoo!  She has also remained very independent and prefers to fall asleep by herself.  At bedtime I will snuggle with her for five minutes or less and sing primary songs before saying goodnight, tucking her in, and walking out.  She calls for me until I'm all the way out the door, but unless she isn't ready for bed, she rarely throws a fit.  She has also found a way to procrastinate bedtime.  She will say "Song" over and over will me cuddle requesting more and more songs.  She never wants to be done with the songs.  We do a similar routine at naptime, and she takes one nap a day that last from two to three hours.

My sleeping beauty

Bree loves to take a bath and play with her brothers.  She loves to hold on tight to one of my fingers as we walk around the house.  She is my "big" helper with the dishes and insists on putting the utensils away for me.  Her favorite game is "touch" and involves standing with your back to the front door while touching it and then running and squealing as you make a circle around the love seat and then head back to "touch" the door again.  She has to play with someone else and she can play for a long, long time.  She also loves to color, and is easy to entertain with a crayon and piece of paper.

I'm grateful that she has been my easiest baby by far.  I don't know if it's because she's a girl, or because she's my third, or it it's that I know a bit more of what I'm doing, but either way, she's by far my easiest baby and that has been a blessing.  We are so happy to have our "Bree babe".