Favorites

At 16 months, here are her favorites:

• snack – seedless red grapes, cut in half
• meal – pasta with tomatoes sauteed in butter and cheese, along with steamed broccoli
• toys – Lacing beads and jewelry necklaces, bracelet, and rings. The lacing beads came from Slovakia. They are nice big, colorful, plastic pieces that we have on shoe laces. V loves to take them out and put them back in the jar they came in. The toy jewelry I got at a garage sale for 50 cents and are so pretty! She likes taking them off and putting them on.
• books –Leo’s Tree and Llama Llama Red Pajama.
• video – The Backyardigans, episode “Special Delivery” – the one with the motorcycles and “Tyrone the Mailman.”
• activity – Going on a run with her daddy at the open-space preserve close by. After their run they go to the farm located in the park and see the animals.

Growing tall

Last week I met a lady who had three small children. We were chatting and she asked how old my daughter was. She said, “Let me guess. Right around 2 years?” When I told her V was 1 year and 4 months her mouth literally fell open.

The last check up V had a month ago, the doctor said she’s in the 96 percentile for height. Add to that that V has very few rolls of baby fat on her legs and arms, so she looks older than her 16 months. Her aunt C, uncle D and cousins came last week and brought a lot of clothes size 2T. V fits in almost all of the 2T shirts perfectly. The pants are good at the waist but a little long on the legs. I’ll just roll them up a bit.

Maybe she’s growing so much because she is eating and eating, and then eating some more. I’d say a lot of fruit and vegetables. And in between that is milk a few times a day. She also gets plenty of exercise since if we stay inside for more than half the day she goes stir-crazy and starts to have tantrums. The days go smoothest if we go out once in the morning walking to the grocery store for example, once in the afternoon to go see trains for example, and then maybe she will go out again with her daddy in the evening after he comes from work.

V is down to one nap now, more or less. She still takes two occasionally, but mainly she has her nap around 12pm or 1pm and sleeps for 2 hours. Still, since she wakes at 8:30am or 9am and goes to bed at 8pm, she gets plenty of sleep and so do her parents, thank goodness.