16 months

Rachel is growing so fast!  Everyone said it would happen, and people continue to remind us daily... but there she goes.  Running, climbing, dancing, giggling, talking, and learning so many new things.  She's 16 months old going on 2 years old.

When I say growing, I mean getting older, not actually growing.  She weighs 19lbs, 8 oz. and measures at the 3rd percentile for weight.  This is despite eating 5 solid meals throughout the day, drinking whole milk and snacking frequently.  Here's an idea of some of the things she ate today: 2 sausages, 1 avocado, half a peach, 1/3 banana, 15 cherry tomatoes, 20 blueberries, 3/4 cup yogurt, 1 poached egg, 2 thick slices cheese, 2 Tablespoons peanut butter, 1/3 large tortilla, green beans, 1 carrot, cheerios, a few bites of bagel, probably 2.5 cups of whole milk, breastmilk before bed, and a 99g pack of apple/carrot puree.

When she's not eating, she's talking.  The doctor at her check up today asked me how many words she says.  I guessed around 30 or 40 words that both Jason and I could understand.  It is hard to know what you should count as a real word.  Does 'baaa baa' count as sheep?  Does 'Nana' or 'Tee-Tee' or 'Cooper' count as names?  Does 'Ray-Ray' which is what she calls herself?  So I actually started a list tonight of all the words I think Rachel can say on her own when labeling something, and I have 128 words down.  Some are a stretch, like 'camera' is 'ka-ka' and colour is also 'ka-ka'.  But this is not including things that she'll just repeat when you say it, like when Daddy tries to get her to say beautiful and she says 'bu-full'.  I also decided that signing snake and saying 'SSSSSsssss' is not actually a word, but I did give her credit for 'Pen-Pen' which is penguin.  Favorite words on the list include 'boogers', 'fox', 'octopus', 'backpack', 'ski', 'driving', and 'read'.  Every day she comes up with more and it's definitely the most exciting thing going on around here.

Weaning away the morning feed has gone well.  She responded much better to it that I anticipated.  I had one uncomfortable day on Sat after a date Fri night, which meant missing a night and a morning feed.  I'm not ready to comment on the sleep pattern part of this, since we've had a little bit of everything in the sleep department in the last couple of weeks.  The goal is to have her sleep from 7:30pm-5:30am straight.

Date Friday night was awesome.  We loved our sitter and she did really well putting Rachel down to bed.  We had a very nice time looking for houses, skating on the outdoor rink, and having fondue.  Yummy!!!

Sunday we went on a nice snowshoe in Rocky Mtn National Park to Bierstadt Lake.  

Rachel is officially signed up for daycare and will start on Monday Feb 20th, doing half days next week with the goal of doing 4 full days the week after.  We chose a daycare close to our house for now, but she is also on a waitlist for one we really like in Louisville.