18 Months

Nick Names: Noodle, Baby baby, Little one
Height: 31.5 inches
Weight: 25 pounds
Head: 18 inches
Teeth: 11
Words: Hi, Uh oh, Mama (plus occasional words below)
Favorite Things: Cats, Baby dolls, her brothers, coloring, cats,

I can’t decide if the past 6 months have gone quickly or not. Sometimes it felt like a never ending slog that we were sleepwalking through, but on the other hand I swear we just celebrated F’s first birthday. Either way, we have an official 18 month old on our hands. And thanks to a sleep consultant, we are back on track with sleep and everyone is feeling more like themselves lately. F is back to sleeping and happily chatting in her crib, and it feels like at least one layer of stress has evaporated.

F remains the happiest Spearson, excited to be a part of things, and loves it when we go somewhere. She mostly gets mad when we try to remind her she’s a baby and can’t always do the same things that the older two can. Oh how quickly she’s going to demand equal treatment though. Already she fights back if someone tries to push her away.

She is also stubborn. So stubborn. Lately getting her into her carseat is a STRUGGLE. She makes her body stiff as a board and hooks her elbows over the sides of the car seat and laughs hysterically while I try and stuff her in the seat. She definitely likes to play games with us - fake crying or throwing herself to the floor, and then when she’s caught she’ll just look up at you and laugh.

She loves to mimic everything we do, and learns so quickly. She knows that after she gets changed she should pick up her clothes and put them in the hamper. She tries to put on her own shoes, loves to throw trash away, and the other day while I was making an omlette while holding her in my arms, she grabbed a handful of cheese and threw it on the egg. You only have to show her once or twice for her to pick up something.

She loves to color, play with baby dolls, and run around after her brothers. She snuggles on the couch and demands to be tucked in with fuzzy blankets. Recently she’s discovered a love of books and will demand that you read them to her, but usually you can only get a page or two in before she gives you a new one.

I should know this by now, but the 18 month language explosion is insane. We go from “wow they’re not really talking very much” to almost a new word every few days. For a while she’d copy a word if you said it enough times, but lately those words are sticking instead of disappearing. So here’s a fairly complete list of words that I’ve heard once or twice, although sometimes not again: Attic, Baby, Thank You, Go, Pizza, Abby, This, Mo (“More” while making the sign). She’s not a huge fan of sign language, but she’ll occasionally use it. Mostly she’s pretty good at getting her point across, though.

My favorite thing has been watching her relationships with her brothers grow, though. Sweet and cuddly with one, loud and giggly with the other. They both fight over who gets to pick her up and help her on the couch, and they’ve even been letting her into their rooms more often. They’re super cute when they’re not working against me at daycare pickup…


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