17 months

At 17 months...

• She is starting to imitate words better. "Tuk" for truck, "ma" for Max, "buh" for bus 
• Throws tantrums i.e. Lies down screaming, banging head on ground (but oh so slowly and carefully)
• Likes to wipe things like the floor or hers or your mouth
• Likes walking around outside and lets go of my hand more often now
• Can say "no" but for the most part just shakes her head 
• Says "da" for yes ( I think bc I say yea? a lot )
• Transitioning to one nap a day
• Can say "bah!-boh" for bubbles 
• Went to uncle Hai and aunt Maisie's wedding and did great!
• Threw up for the first time, after the wedding, all over mommy. Had a little too much fun...(and she was sick). 
• Can stay up much later. Bedtime is now 8/830
• Can say "má-tewww" for Matthew, her long time nursery class buddy
• Can say "téd-deee" for Teddy and "dá-dee" for daddy

Her vocabulary has grown so much this whole 17th month!  We've had a lot of those, did she just imitate that word almost perfectly?? Apparently she knows the names of all her classmates and teachers (identify, not verbally).  Her teachers keep saying how smart she is but I hesitate to play into all the accolades. I don't want to have exceeding expectations and then have her fall short of them. Is that wrong??!  I've always believed in aiming just average, that way if you exceed that, you'll feel better about yourself.  I know it contradicts every motivational speaker out there, but it's a motto that's worked out pretty well for myself. 

Poop

She pooped!!--in the toilet!  It's funny how one can get so excited about something that normally would be so gross.  When it is coming from your baby, it's worth celebrating!  I wasn't really planning on any potty training but since it seemed like all my friends babies were starting already, I decided to try it this morning. I'm not sure if she was as excited about it as I was. When it occurred, her expression was an, omg, what just happened??

Look what I did!

Almost 17 months

At almost 17 months....

• She says 'buh' for please, 'na' for milk, 'nana' for banana
• She can point to the correct places when asked, "where are your ears, nose, mouth"
• She makes sounds "bzz" for bees, "bok bok" for chicken, "vvvv" for car
• She loves to try to brush her hair or your hair
• She sometimes is cooperative when I try to brush her teeth and other times it's struggle
• She likes to hold the phone on the side of her head (not at the ear) and say gibberish 
• She loves her shoes and is obsessed with going outside. I usually have to hang out with her a little bit outside before she will go in her car seat. 
• She likes to hold my hand to walk around outside 
• She likes to smell flowers
• She also likes to pull the petals off the rose bushes in the front yard 
• She loves to run (walk fast) towards me with a huge smile when I pick her up from school 
• She had her first ear infection at 16 months. We didn't know she had one and it festered for so long that it wasn't til it burst and started to smell that we realized something was wrong.  Poor baby!!
• She talks a lot of gibberish 
• She understands the majority of what I say to her
• She's been sleeping and waking up later (8pm - 630/745 am)!
• She loves to eat bananas.  She eats them every morning and sometimes for lunch and dinner too!  Sometimes I think she's a monkey because she also persistently makes a sound that resembles a monkey when she wants something.
• She is very impatient especially when it comes to being fed 
• She finally moved up to the toddler class at her school!  (April 7 official first full day) She cried a lot the first week when I dropped her off in the classroom but today I handed her over to the lead teacher and she held her arms out willingly!
• She enjoys the Children's Musuem and discovered how fun a slide can be
• She likes to say "uh-ooh" , just for fun
• She experienced her first snow in Colorado.  She liked the actual snow but didn't like walking in it...too unstable for a new walker I suppose.  She enjoyed sledding too!
• She had her first allergic reaction to what we still don't know but she broke out in a rash and her hands, feet, and face swelled up over the course of  2 days. It occurred on the day we left Colorado. 

Post bday

It's been 2 months since my last post and for babies development that's like 2 years!  After 6 months of trying to get A to sign, one week after her first birthday it finally clicked!  She can sign for "more" and eventually signed for "milk", and "all done".

• At 14 months she finally took her first few steps.  She's very cautious and prefers to just sit down and crawl
• Her first official word by 14 months is dog.  She can point to a dog and say "dog" (dah!) and when asked what sound does the dog make, she's says "woof woof" (heh heh).   Technically her first word was probably "dada" but "dog" is more unbiased.  (Why won't she say mama?!?  She prefers my arms over anyone else's anytime but she refuses to say mama!!)
• Started to get her first primary molars

One More Day!!

Bambino's first birthday and party day is in one day!!  I know she's excited.  I can see it in her eyes...and screams...  All the decor I've been busy planning and making are starting to materialize (in other words,  house is a mess).  I will post about the entire party, including decor, cake, DIYs (note to self: need to take lots of pics to document!), but not til after I have a breather after the party is over.

My friend's baby is 6 weeks older than Avi, but she can say so many words already.  It's not that I need Avi to be caught up but I just think it'd be so much nicer than trying to decipher which screams mean what.  So when my friend said she "made" her baby talk, it dawned on me that I just need to "make" Avi talk with some tough love.  First mission, the word "more", as in "more" Cheerios.  After trying to refrain from giving her more of her beloved Cheerios unless she said something along the lines of "mm-mm", she started saying, "mm-mm"!!  It worked after only one eating session!  Now I just have to keep working at it so that she can be consistent.  In the meantime, still lots of screaming and banging hands.

Side note, I think my bambino is the cutest baby ever with the most squishable cheeks.  They are so soft and bouncy to kiss!  I don't think I'm biased at all...lol!

She's growing up fast!

I haven't updated in awhile because I've been busy planning for Avi's big "1"!!  A party that was supposed to be small, of course never ends up small when it involves my family.  Since my last post, Avi had another eye infection that started just 2 days after she finished her first course of oral antibiotics.  It took a week and a half and changing antibiotic ointment and drops twice before it resolved which I'm thinking, it probably would've just resolved on its own.
Things Avi can do now: She can cruise a little bit but prefers to grab a hold of me and walk.  She says "dada" a lot and "mama" sometimes, more often when she's upset.  Yesterday, I called the hubs with the speaker on and told her it was dada and she enthusiastically said "Dadadada!!"  Even though she can't say what she wants yet, I can tell she understands when I say "milk", "water", "more", "Teddy", and "let's go to school".  She just recently can "blow a kiss" which looks more like hand to and from chin while saying "vah!"  Just this morning I was singing, "Miss mary mack mack mack, all dressed in black black black, with silver buttons buttons buttons, all down her back back back" while putting on her new big girl coat  and she sang along "buh buh buh".  It's amazing to see how much information she's absorbing!
She dressed as a monkey for her first halloween!  I thought the costume fit her energy, constantly climbing and moving all over the place!  I may be biased but I think she must be the cutest monkey ever!!
After the last screaming session at Fu Fu's a few months ago, we kinda shied away from eating out with her.  But now that we have a better rhythm with her eating and sleeping, we started exploring eating out for dinner with her again.  Albeit, the timing has to be right and eating out is not like it used to be.  It's tricky trying to ration out her food so that she doesn't run out before we get to eat.
This week at school, she already started transitioning to the next class!  Every morning at 9, she (and her buddy Matthew who is 1 wk younger than her) goes to the next class for about an hour to sit in on their "lesson".  Such a strange concept to me considering she can't walk yet and can barely sit still for a minute.  Today Ms. Le tells me, in vietnamese, "Her voice is so loud!  Her parents speak so nice and softly, but she is so loud!"  Yes, Ms. Le, we've noticed =)

Firsts

Not all "firsts" are good firsts.  Avi baby got her first eye infection this week in her right eye.  The same eye that has had the clogged duct that I've been hoping would unclog as she got bigger but it hasn't unclogged and probably made her more prone to getting the infection.  I guess surgery will be inevitable...we'll have to see at her 12 month check up.  The good thing is her eye doesn't seem to bother her at all but maybe her runny nose and cough is cuz she's been waking up an hour earlier than she usually does (6am instead of 7am).  Once she feels better, a little sleep training refresher may be needed.
Some positive firsts: she can pull up to standing with ease now.  She can also go from crawling to sitting position.  I caught her unsuccessfully trying to climb to standing in her crib so hubs lowered the crib to the final lowest setting.  She's attending her first birthday party this weekend.  Her friend Audrey is turning 1!
Still waiting for her to say "mama" ...

**Update: She can pull up to standing in her crib easily now and I see why those teething rails are necessary...little chipmunk! =)

Still in good spirits even with an eye infection and a cold