23 Months ~Amelia~

Whew… we are so ready for the weather to warm up and stay warm.  I can’t wait to unleash Amelia to enjoy the yard, bikes, and swing set in our yard.   

Growth: 

Weight:  26 lbs  

Height:  ~34.5”

Amelia is still in 24 month and 2T items but we are really in need of some larger items.  I put a short sleeve and capri 2T outfit on her the other day and it was really small!  Yikes!  We need some new items.  Diapers are a size 4 and shoes a size 5-6.  

Mobility/Coordination:  Amelia can get pajama pants on by herself and tries for every other article of clothing as well.  She loves sitting on pedal toys and can pedal if she has momentum in her favor.  She really enjoys shape sorter and stacker toys and is getting pretty good at them. 

Language/Communication:  Amelia’s favorite game is to make sure everyone in the family is named and accounted for.  When I wake her in the morning, she first asks “Daddy?” and I tell her he is at work.  Then she says “Gant?” and I say he is still sleeping.  She pokes my chest and says “mommy” and then points to herself and said “Ah-ya-ya” (Amelia).  By that time we are down the stairs and she spots the dogs to which she yells out “Monty, Bucky!”  

Overall talk talk talk!  She has so many words I can’t keep track any more.  She loves point out owls and saying “owl” and “hoooo.”  When she wants something, she says “Me, me, me.”  However, we notice that she still has some difficulty putting two words together.

Personality/Amelia-isms:  This little stinker…  I wish I could eloquently put into words Amelia’s personality.  She is fun and silly and sassy and goofy and sweet and spunky.  We just never quite know what we are going to get but I wish I could bottle her up right now and keep it this way for a very long time.

Her newest joke is that when you ask for a kiss she immediately crams her thumb in her mouth you can’t kiss her lips.  She calls the dogs to her chair by making a kissing sound at the dinner table to feed them.   

Sleep:  On the 1^st of March we converted Amelia’s crib to the toddler bed not really knowing what to expect.  She did amazingly well!  We tucked her in, she stays in bed, and goes to sleep on her own. 

    

She's an active sleeper!

The move went so well we decided to take another big plunge and move her up to a full bed so we could pass our crib on to what will be the newest Fisher addition.  So just shy of two weeks later we moved Amelia up to the full bed.  Yet again, she has done exceptionally well.  I keep waiting for it to change but thus far we tuck her in, read a story, kiss her good night and she literally doesn’t get out of bed until we go get her whether we have to wake her up or she is already awake and just lying in bed. 

So small in that big bed!

Eating:  I'm not sure what has changed but Amelia's thirst has slowed for milk and dinner time has gotten somewhat better.  She doesn't battle or refuse as much as she had been.  She likes having a napkin so she can  neatly place her plate/bowl, cup, and everything on it like a placemat.  

Teeth:  No new teeth this month but those two year old molars are really close!

Illnesses/Owies:  Well we had a nice streak of quiet sick months that came to an abrupt end this month.  I picked Amelia up from daycare on a Thursday and she seemed ok at the time but about a mile from the house I heard her cough, then gag, then vomit.  Never fun but definitely not fun in the car!  At the time, I thought maybe it had been a fluke.  She had a loose cough and I thought maybe when she coughed she had gotten gagged on phlegm which caused her to puke.  Well that was not the case!

Amelia threw up again at 7 and 9 that night and then beginning at 9 I kid you not this poor little girl literally threw up every 20-30 minutes alllll night longggg.  She gagged and dry heaved until there was nothing left and then was dry heaving more.  We slept downstairs in the recliner covered in towels.  The next day the pukes slowed to about every hour but by this point she was getting dehydrated and I couldn’t get it to stop.  We made the trek to the doctor to which the doctor said a bad bug was “going around” and they gave her an anti-nausea med with the direction that if she still couldn’t keep things down we needed to go to the ER. 

Sick baby girl

Going into the night she seemed better and no vomiting with the med and very small sips of liquid.  I woke her every hour all night just so she could take a sip and go back to sleep.  However, the next morning Amelia still did not seem to be on the mend.  I called the doc and talked symptoms and signs for dehydration and at what point we needed to do something.  We felt reassured we were still ok at this point but she was so weak we had to hold her up to take sips of water and she couldn’t stand or balance on her own.

Still feeling nervous going into another night and having had several vomit incidents on Saturday Matt took over re-hydration duty and woke her to take sips.  She made it through the night with no puking so we thought by this point we were on the road to recovering.  We tried small sips still and a little substance (toast) which didn’t go well Sunday morning and she threw up again.  Feeling like we had pushed too much too fast we took a step back and she did better for a while that day.  Again, once we tried solids she threw up so we just gave up on that all together Sunday.

   

Starting to feel better

Monday was finally a better day but then her stools began to loosen.  She only had three BMs but they were on the loose side.  Tuesday seemed like we were finally in the clear so we attempted daycare.  Unfortunately by 10 am I had received a call saying Amelia had 3 very loose, watery stools and I had to come get her.  At this point, I wasn’t sure how long this phase would last we headed home prepared for explosive poops.  Amelia never had another BM that day but wasn’t allowed back at daycare until Thursday.  Matt took stay home duty on Wednesday (no BMs) so by Wednesday (nearly a week after it all began) we were finally in the clear.  She headed back to daycare on Thursday (having not had a BM in a day and a half so we didn’t know what to expect).  For the record she did end up with one normal poop that day that was “enough to fill two diapers.”

Either way this “bug” was by far the worse our family has seen since Grant’s first run in with C Diff.  We waited for the rest of the family to fall ill with it but Matt and I escaped unscathed and Grant threw up just once on Sunday night and stayed home from school Monday.    

Brother/Sister Moment(s):  As can be seen from these goofy pictures, these kiddos have a blast together!

Two peas in a pod

Grant said, "she's baptizing me like John the Baptist!"

Funniest moment(s):  Amelia likes to strain to push out a fart and every time she does she says, “Toot!” 

Firsts/Adventures:  We attended the St. Patrick’s day parade.  Amelia seemed to enjoy watching but it was relatively uneventful. 

Amelia and Papa at the parade

Likes:  giving a thumbs up ~ ride-on and push toys ~ her new bed ~ blankie ~ closing her eyes when we pray (she does this adorable scrunch face and doesn’t actually close her eyes) ~ trying to walk the dogs by holding their collars

Dislikes:  taking pics/video (see below where she is happily playing with baby until she realizes I am taking a video)

Toddler Moment(s):  There have been a couple of biting incidents here and there that we are trying to get a handle on.  She is doing well otherwise.  We have our moments of stubbornness and persistence and insistence but we are working through it. 

 
Potty Training:  We have been focusing on sitting Amelia on the potty several times a day.  We haven’t had many successes but she is no longer scared of sitting on the big toilet using the training seat so I consider that an accomplishment!