Minnesota Barlows: 14 Months!

Our sweet Kylie girl turned 14 months old on January 19th!

Kylie continues to amaze us each and every day! She is soooo smiley and so full of personality! She loves being the center of her mom and dad's attention. She likes to chatter and babble endlessly to anyone who will listen! Her favorites toys to play with right now are her blocks, my rubbermaid containers, bread (strange, right?!), her musical table, her books, and her stroller and dinosaur walkers! She still LOVES to eat pretty much anything we give her! And she really likes being sung to or listening to music!

We are still working on toning down the whining. We try to ignore it or ask her to "ask nicely." I'm pretty sure she doesn't know what that means yet, but someday she will! :) She really dislikes when we are eating and she is not, so now she gets some sort of food pretty much whenever anyone around her is eating. She also still does not like getting her head wet in the tub, which makes bath time a bit of a chore. One more thing that she does not like is being forced to walk. I've been working with her on this, and she will scream and cry and hold her legs up until I finally let her sit down. We are starting to see the stubborn streak that is apparently common in the "Calm Scorpio" according to Dr. El Hassan.

Kylie continues to progress and grow and meet many different milestones. I have been a little worried, however, about some of her speech and gross motor milestones, so she has started "Baby Bootcamp." Everyday we spend some time practicing walking with me holding her hands, as well has with her walker. She also has vocabulary lessons, in which I say some words and/or sounds, and I try to get her to imitate me. We look at and point to pictures of different items/objects/things so she can learn about her environment. We also read several books throughout the day. I know I can be a little bit of a momzilla, but it helps to ease my anxiety by being proactive!

Despite my concerns, Kylie has made a ton of progress over the last month. She is pulling up with ease, cruising along the couch and coffee table, and even cruising from one object to the next. For example, she will put one hand on the couch and one hand on the coffee table, and transfer back and forth between the two. She has finally started to take up to 4 steps with her dinosaur walker, which is HUGE because she hates walking! She still prefers the army crawl, but has started to use a "four point" crawl on a more regular basis. We have decided that she likes the army crawl because it is faster and because she can hold things in her hands as she moves! :) Kylie has started to use a ton of gestures to communicate what she wants. She points (with her whole hand), lifts her arms to be picked up, says "more," "all done," and "milk" in sign language, lifts her arms above her head for "so big," covers her eyes for "peek a boo," and puts her hand to her ear when we play telephone." She also gives kisses, waves bye-bye, and wiggles when she hears music! Two of her biggest accomplishments, in my opinion, are that she is now drinking from a sippy cup (YAY!), and is pretty much completely feeding herself table food! We even finally gave her peanut butter, and is was a huge hit! She kept asking for "more." As far as her size, she has definitely plateaued. Her weight has been right around 23 pounds since October, but she continues to grow in height. She is now 31 inches tall! Because she is thinning out, she is really starting to look like a little toddler. She is still wearing mostly 12-18 month clothes, with a few 18-24 month t-shirts and dresses. She wears a size 4 shoe and size 4 diapers.

I think because I took her picture right before nap time, I couldn't get Kylie to smile for the camera. But she was more than willing to demonstrate her many different faces! Here's the proof: