15 Months Old - Our Toddler

My baby Grace is seeming less and less like a baby every single day.
She has been a true walker for just a little over a month now.  She's solid on her legs and just a little mini person now.  She toddles all over our house, and now unfortunately has started climbing on everything she can.  (The ottoman, the stool, the highchair, boxes, anything left out in her reach).  She's saying all kinds of words, and "talking" all the time.

She's a busy and social little girl, always putting her toys inside other things (cabinets, drawers, purses, paper bags), always looking for more to explore.  She loves meeting new people, even if she acts shy sometimes at first.


Here's the latest with Grace:

Teeth:
I think 12.  6 on top and 6 on bottom.  Still a gap between her front teeth and her back molars.

Sleep:
Grace goes to bed around 7:30 pm every night.  She goes down with no trouble at all, and sleeps until around 1/2 am.  Then nurses, and goes back to bed around 2/3 am and sleeps until 7:30 am.

She naps daily from about 12 to about 2.
It's a pretty good sleep schedule (minus the middle of the night wakeup). 
She had about a week in February where she slept through the night, no waking up in the middle at all.  But, my body wasn't used to it and didn't know what to do!  I found myself waking up at 1am wide awake for 2-3 hours waiting for her to wake up also!

When she ever someday sleeps through, I really hope my body adjusts back at some point as well.  A solid night sleep is just such a foreign concept to me anymore.

Eating: 
We are still breastfeeding 3-4 times a day, but it really does seem like she is nursing for shorter and shorter amounts of time at each feed.  I'm wondering if this is the start of self-weaning? And she is still loving her solids. But, she's also a lot pickier with her solids now too.  Meal times are always hit or miss.  She does love a few foods though: cheese, cracker, cheerios, blueberries, and kiwi!

Sizes:
She is still wearing size 4 diapers.  She's now wearing mostly 18-24 months, but there are a few items from her 12-18 months size that still fit.
At her 14 month appointment, she was 77% for weight, and 94% for height!  We knew she was tall, because she's passed a lot of babies at daycare that are her same age or older.  It's interesting to hear the stats though.

Likes:
Grace still loves her Bunny.  Bunny goes everywhere she goes (except the bath).  It's really interesting to see how it's such a comfort item for her, a security blanket.  She kisses bunny (so sweet), and sometimes when she wakes up, she'll stroke bunny until she falls back asleep, or until someone comes to get her.  Bunny came on the plane with us to Florida, and came back covered in sunscreen and airport germs.  Then, Grace got a cold, and used Bunny as her Kleenex for a whole week.  So, Bunny went in the washing machine for the first time, and thankfully, came out fine!   She still loves all animals, especially kitties!
Grace still loves books!  I'm enjoying searching for new books for her based on ones she currently likes.  It will be fun when we can start reading longer books with more interesting plots together.  Grace loves fake cell phones.  She would love real ones, except I don't let her have those.
Grace loves climbing.  This is trouble, because there is truly no safe place for her to climb.  She loves both of her grandpas, and even says "Bumpa" now for Grandpa.
Grace still loves Peek-a-Boo, I'll be so sad when she outgrows it!  It's her way of showing people that she likes them and wants to socialize with them.
She loves opening drawers and putting stuff in them, particularly the bathroom drawers.

She loves being outdoors!  We had some unseasonably warm weather in February, and so we went outside after school every day for awhile. She loved going in her swing in the backyard and walking up and down the sidewalk on our street.  But now, it's been cold and fairly wet lately (snowy/rainy), so I've avoided the outdoor walks for awhile.  I'm definitely looking forward to spring and summer and taking more walks around the neighborhood with her.



Dislikes:
For the first time in her life, Grace had a week where she disliked bath-time!  There was one night where the water was too hot and then for about a week after, she refused to get in or stay in for more than a minute.  I bought a turtle "stuffed animal" that is meant to be used in the bath, hoping it would be something she could cuddle during bath-time.  At first she wasn't happy it was in the bath with her, but now she's warming up to it, and bathtime seems fairly pleasant again (thank goodness!  It's  vital part of our bedtime routine)!
She is also not liking her highchair much anymore.  She'll sit in it, but gets mad when I buckle the tray in.
She doesn't like when I try to do her hair.  I don't know how some people are able to put braids in their toddler's hair.  She barely sits still long enough for me to get a mini ponytail!
As she gets older, her likes and dislikes are becoming more and more clear.

Language:
Another big change for this age is her language!  I don't know if this is what they mean by "language explosion", but it certainly feels like an explosion of words to me. We've started a google doc here with all of her words, and my mom organized it by category for us.  Having Grace communicate through words is leaps and bounds better than all of her grunts and fusses.  It is amazing to see how quickly she can learn a word.  For example, I recently bought that stuffed turtle to help with bath time.  She learned quickly to point at it and say "tootle".  But then, a few days later, we're reading a book, and she sees a picture of a turtle in the book, and says "tootle! tootle!" Yes, baby girl, you're right!
Her favorite word currently is "Uppy!".  It means "up", "down", "help", "open this" and probably more.  My current favorite word of hers is "bumpa" for Grandpa.

Grace has some super sweet behaviors that just melt my heart.  I love when she takes a stuffed animal or doll, and wraps it up in a blanket (or random towel or whatever), and says "nigh nigh" to it.  I love when she blows kisses, or says "Byeee!", or kisses us. Grace can give some very sweet hugs.  They are rare, and only last for a few seconds, but when you get one, it's wonderful.


Every day I think about how lucky I am to be her mom.  When she calls for me, ("Mommeee"), I know how lucky I am to be the one to comfort her and hold her.

Brian and I have such a big task.  Brian wants to raise her to be hardworking, independent, and persistent.  I want to raise her to be kind, polite, and humble.  But no matter what she ends up like, she will always be perfect in my mind.