18 Months

Dear Allison Leigh,

Today you are 18 months old! How is it possible that you are three quarters of the way to two already? It seems like just yesterday that we brought you home from the hospital, orange as a little carrot! Since I have proven to be absolutely terrible at keeping up with your baby book I thought I'd record some observations of your life these days so we can look back and remember what you were doing at this time.

• You were at the doctor's office early last week and weighed in at 24 pounds and 10.5 ounces (50th percentile) and were 31.5 inches tall (also the 50th percentile.) We are thrilled to call you AVERAGE!!


• You have 12 teeth that are fully out and you have four more pearly whites that are about to break free from your gums any day now.


• You sleep for 10-11 hours a night and have just moved to a one nap per day schedule.


• You have 5 loveys! 2 Lily Maes (frog head blankets), 1 Nettie Confetti (bunny head blanket), and two little satin blankets. You have to have all 5 of them to go to sleep.


• You love to cart around Lily Mae (the original one with the hat) everywhere!


• You adore your dogs and have lots of fun chasing them around the house with all of your push toys (car, lawnmower, shopping cart, baby carriage, etc.)


• One of your favorite activities is to run up and down the dog ramp in the back yard. You never seem to tire of this and will happily do it 50+ times or until you are forced to come inside.


• You love bath time and run naked from your bedroom into the bathroom shrieking happily all the way! It's usually a race to get you into the tub before you get too excited and pee all over yourself and the bathroom floor!


• You're starting to build up a decent little vocabulary which includes "yes" (interestingly and thankfully you haven't learned "no" yet!) "go", "eye", "hi", "dada", "ma", "baby", "Mo" and "Gu" (Gus).


• Due to all of your feeding complications you still have this bizarre aversion to anything with texture so you eat strictly baby food. Anything with more texture will cause you to vomit. You do love to try to feed me and others though.


• You will drink water out of a straw cup, but are not as willing to accept your high calorie formula. We're concentrating on this in feeding therapy right now and are also working to get you to hold your own bottle which you still get 5 times a day in order to provide you with the necessary calories to keep you growing and healthy.


• You love the Tupperware cabinet and the salad spinner. The dishwasher, washer and dryer are also favorites of yours. You like to help mommy load and unload all three.


• You watch a video of your deployed daddy nearly every night before bed and smile when he signs off and tells you how much he loves you and misses you before blowing you a kiss.


• You love to dance (bounce) to all kinds of music.


• You are not at all interested in television. I've tried to get you to watch Sesame Street and various programs on Sprout, Noggin and PBS but you won't sit still long enough to check them out.


• You love being the center of attention in most all situations.


• You can point out the following body parts: nose, eye, ears, mouth, teeth, tongue, boobies, tummy, belly button, hands, bottom, knees, feet, and toes.


• You will be starting pre school at our church one day a week from 9am- noon tomorrow. (GULP!!)


• You have the most beautiful golden curls and blue eyes. We may be a little bit biased, but your daddy and I think you are the most beautiful girl around.


• You're going to be a big sister in a mere four months! While I don't think you have any concept of what that means right now, I'm confident that you're going to be just great in your new roll.

You are such a special little girl and you bring so much joy into the lives of so many people. Daddy and I feel so luck to have you and we love you to pieces!

All our love,

Mommy & Daddy