Emma is 14 months, going on 2 years. I mean, holy tantrums batman! Ugh. I’m really hoping that these episodes are just caused by her getting 5 teeth at once (3 of which are molars) and not just Emma’s new normal. Things that now anger Emma: getting her diaper changed, getting dressed, having doors closed to rooms that are off limits, not being able to go outside, not getting to play in the water (pool or bucket), not being able to lift something that’s way too heavy for her, getting her hand or body stuck in a space that’s too small for her and sometimes, having to sit in her highchair or carseat. I now totally understand why some toddlers run around with no clothes on. Sometimes, it’s just not worth the fight.
On that note, we are starting to learn how to pick our battles. It seems that Emma is going to be a very strong-willed child. While I don’t think she should get to have or do everything she wants, I do try to find a way to reasonably accommodate her desires most of the time. For example, if she wants to play in the pool but it’s too cold, I let her play outside with a bucket of warm water while she’s clothed. She of course ends up getting wet still but less so.
Though Emma has been frustrating at times this past month, she’s also been very fun in other ways. She can now do peekaboo, “so big!”, pattycake and wave bye bye when asked 80% of the time. She is becoming more of a cuddler – when we’re playing with toys, she’ll crawl over to me and give me a hug and kiss. One of my favorite things to do is snuggle and tickle her. She loves it and giggles a ton! She is still totally a momma’s girl, though she really likes Grandma Beth (Trav’s mom) too.
Emma still isn’t walking, but has taken a few steps between furniture, and likes to walk along walls. She is doing pretty good standing up by herself – at the cabin on Memorial Day weekend, she could stand up on the bed without holding on. She still loses her balance every once in a while but I’m sure she’ll start walking within the next couple of months – though she doesn’t seem to be in that much of a hurry! She likes to climb on things that are at her height, and loves to crawl through tables and small spaces.
Emma had her first mild injury this week. She’s bumped her head on things too many times to count, but this week, she pulled a small plant table and table fan over on herself. I’m very thankful that the table was tall enough that the fan went over her head and only one small part of the table hit her. I actually didn’t even realize that she had gotten that hurt until later (she hadn’t cried more than with previous bumps and bruises). She got a slight black eye and apparently bit her tongue because it’s black and blue in one spot. Poor Emma. She didn’t seem fazed by it though and the next morning, it looked much better.
This update is a little bit different than normal, but Emma’s size and sleep are pretty much unchanged from last month. She’s still wearing 12-18 month clothes, solidly taking 2 naps a day and sleeping through the night. Her naps did get knocked a little off kilter when she first started getting her 5 new teeth, but they’re back to normal now. Her nighttime sleep didn’t really change at all, except that it was a little harder to get her to sleep. Advil and teething gel to the rescue!
Whenever I hold her for a nap, she always wakes up in a panic, like she doesn’t know where she is. This was her “I just woke up” face.
Her eating habits are also pretty much the same – I’ve been giving her 4 bottles a day (24-26 ounces total), plus 3 meals and sometimes 1 snack. I’ve tried decreasing the amount of milk Emma drinks but the girl loves her bottles! Right now, she gets a bottle when she wakes up, eats breakfast 1.5 hours later, drinks a bottle before her 1st nap, eats lunch when she wakes up, bottle before or after her 2nd nap, eats dinner around 5:30/6 and gets a bottle right before bed.
I’m planning to talk to the pediatrician at Emma’s 15-month checkup about any issues with her drinking so much milk (she still eats plenty of table food in my opinion) but I do think I’m going to try altering her feeding schedule a bit to look like: Eat breakfast with milk in a sippy cup right when she gets up, drink a bottle an hour or so later, skip the bottle before her 1st nap, feed her lunch with milk when she wakes up, bottle sometime before 2nd nap, dinner with milk, then bedtime bottle. I have switched the order for a few meals and she drinks less milk when she’s eaten a meal beforehand. If and when that works, then we’ll focus on phasing out the bottles.
That’s her getting ready to rip her bib off. She doesn’t like wearing them very much.
Like I mentioned above, Emma’s new favorite thing is playing in water. Buckets, pool, dog dish, cup, you name it – she’s all over it. I change her outfit 1-2 times a day because of her being wet. I’m ready for the lakes to warm up so we can go to the beach!
At times, it seems like Emma says “Dawdies” in reference to the dogs, but she says it about other things too so who knows?
Travis is the king of nicknames, spinoffs and abbreviations, so in addition to the original ‘Biscuit’, we’ve started calling Emma these nicknames:
- Bisky
- Em-diggity
- Emmalicious
- Emma McCracken (used when she’s starting to get crabby)
- Bisky McBiskerton
- The Quick
- Quicky McQuickerton
- Destructobaby
We probably call her Bisky 90% of the time. I joke that she’s not going to know what her name is, since we call her so many different things. But we do still use Emma when referring to her possessions (Emma’s shoes), body (Emma’s belly), and asking her questions (Emma, can you do peekaboo?).
Well, that’s Emma at 14 months!
Life, Really Blog 