Coralie - 19 months old

Snap shot from February

It's been about 4 months since I did an update on Cora and so much has changed!

March

Weight/Height - At her 18 month old well visit she weighed in at 23 lbs (56%) which is the same weight she was at her 15 month visit (actually 5 ounces less than she was then). Her Pediatrician isn't worried about this at all, she's just loosing some of the baby fat. She's 31 1/2 inches tall (40%) and her head is in the 90% at 48 cm.

April - She stole Mommy's reading glasses

Health - Last month (18 months old) was a bit of a roller coaster for us. She was fighting allergies pretty badly right before her well visit, but I knew they were just allergies. When I picked her up from childcare at church from Bible Study the teacher mentioned that she had some green snot (lovely right?!) and her eyes were puffy like it was beginning to be a sinus infection. I saw what she was talking about and we were seeing the doctor the next day for her well visit so I figured we'd take care of it all then. (I didn't notice any other infection signs after that, back to normal allergy symptoms) Next day we go to Pedi and the doctor agrees it's just allergies & recommends some over the counter allergy medicines. That weekend we went to visit my Aunt and Uncle in Lubbock and on Saturday evening she suddenly spiked a fever and had a febrile seizure. She had been kind of lethargic that afternoon, but we were attributing that to a late night followed by an early morning, a short nap and a busy day. All her labs came back clear that there was no infection so whatever made her suddenly get a fever was viral. We stayed the rest of the weekend in Lubbock and traveled home the following Monday and went straight to her Pedi. We've learned lots about febrile seizures in the last month and though we know there's not much we can do to prevent one, we're still very nervous about any potential fevers or bugs she may have. She's healthy as can be though! Still some occasional days of allergies that Claritian clears right up. 

Cuddles with Aunt M

Once we get our "sea legs" with this whole seizure thing I hope to find some more natural options to keep fevers controlled so that we're not constantly chasing her around with Tylenol/Ibuprofen if we're concerned she will start running a fever. This will be particularly important with  her starting Mothers Day Out in the fall, the teachers won't administer meds. I hope that I could convince them to put an oil on her feet or chest and hopefully that would tide her over in the event of a low grade fever until I could get there with meds and keep her seizure free (Let me know if you have any natural fever remedies! Everyone recommends Peppermint Oil or Theives but they aren't recommended in the concentration/dose for her age)

Teething - She has a mouth full of teeth! She hasn't gotten her eye teeth yet and we can sort of see where they are behind the gums but aren't cutting yet. She doesn't seem bothered by them most days, but other days she is biting and chewing on things and I'm guessing the teeth hurting is the root of the issue. She's become picky about wearing her Amber Teething Necklace and doesn't always want it on anymore. We've starting only using it when she seems to have a particularly rough teething day. (The ER staff took it off of her when we went in for the seizure & since then she is just much more aware of it and will pull at it asking to have it taken off)

Birthday Dinner for Auntie Kim

Clothing - She's wearing 18 month clothes, she fits best in 18-24 month size but that's tricky to find so we just make do with what we have. She does have some 24 month items that she wears but they're generally a little too big on her.

Uncle Jacob Graduation

Diapers - Size 4 disposables. We're back to using cloth when we're at home! This is the first time since last fall that we're regularly using cloth & I'm so glad to be back at it! I can tell a huge difference in her excema/psoriasis and she never has a diaper rash when primarily in cloth! I need to order a size up in cloth prefolds, she has officially outgrown them but she still fits in our pocket diapers, I just don't have enough of those to last more than one day at a time. I just purchased some that need their elastic replaced, if that project goes well I can probably do 3 days of cloth before running out of diapers so we shall see...

Eating - Nursing - Cora is weaned from Nursing! She weaned in March (which was my goal time frame!) when I dried up. I was glad that provided us a natural ending to nursing and it made weaning tear-free! Once the milk was gone, she didn't mind being redirected away from nursing. John taking over bed times helped a lot with this process too! I nursed her for about 17 months, it came out to 506 days of nursing! I'm sharing our Journey with Breastfeeding on The Girl in the Red Shoes Breastfeeding Diaries as a guest blogger next week, check back for a link to the post!

Beverages -She drinks whatever. She has figured out what sodas are and would very much like it if we would let her "sneak" sips more often. Juices I still try to dilute about 50% but I'm not super particular about that and of course milk and water.

Solids -She eats like a champ. Some days she will love something and hate it the next but that's just toddler for ya :)

ZZzzzzZZZ Sleeping - Cora sleeps about 10.5 to 11 hours a night. She had been sleeping 12 full hours a night up until about 18 months old. She has really established more of a schedule for waking up in the mornings (7:45 - 8:15 most days) regardless of when she went to bed. This has really forced us to be more particular about her going to sleep on time since she isn't sleeping in as well as she had.

She is still sleeping in bed with us. :( We had put our foot down and started really working on her being in her own bed the week she had her seizure. After that I was just too nervous to have her away from me for about 2 weeks. We're comfortable with her going back to her own bed again (not that we had exactly been successful with that endeavor) but she's just not cooperating. If we do any part of her bed time routine in her room she resists sleep because she's clearly afraid we'll leave her in there alone after she's asleep. We have tried putting her down in our room & transferring her to her own bed after she is asleep but then she has an epic meltdown when she wakes to find that she is not with us when she stirs/wakes during the night. In bed with us, those periods of restlessness as she rolls over etc are quick and she self soothes herself to sleep (it wakes me up though...). If she wakes to find she is in her own bed there is at least an hour of hysterics after she's come to us/I've gotten her and she's in bed with us.

First trip of the year to the splash pad

I'm honestly out of ideas and energy fighting this. I don't really want her in our room once Ada comes in July but I don't see that our situation will change before then. My current plan is to take it one day at a time and figure it out as we go. Several moms of older children said that around 2 years old when the child can understand and communicate a little better convincing them that sleeping in their "big girl bed" is exciting etc the transition will go better. I hope they're right.

Our Little Socialite -

Likes- Dolly her doll from Christmas is still her favorite toy. At Grandpa's house she loves pulling her little orange plastic wagon around and collecting things to be in it. Some of the things are her toys, others are random trash or mail. If something goes missing around there, her wagon has become a prime suspect place to check! She can also sit and play with her piggy bank (a Christmas gift from her Uncle) with my Dad for up to an hour! She loves putting coins in the slot and taking them out of the door in it's belly. She has a favorite pair of shoes, her orange "dragon" crocks! They had cute eyes on them to look like the face of a dragon, but she has worn them soooo much the eyes have fallen off. She would wear them every day if I would let her but I don't because boy do her feet stink in those things! ;)

Dislikes - She's gotten better about socks and shoes which was an issue in the last update. The big thing she gets upset about with right now is being left with Grandpa. She's fine being left in church nursery or similar settings but she does not like the concept of being left at Grandpa's house & is exhibiting some serious separation anxiety over that. Sarah, our doula, mentioned tonight that this may be one of those pregnancy hormone things where she is recognizing that something is different and that's how she is exhibiting it. She is also extra clingy to me making it hard to get things done around the house.

New - She will surprise us with new words here and there. Her favorites are "get" "that" "this" but she can also say "juice" "cup" "dog" "cheese" "duck" "here-ya-go" (all crammed together) and once we think she said "love you". She'll occasionally pull a word out of the blue and we're amazed that she had picked it up because we would have never known she had learned that word. Non-verbal communication is still her preferred way to talk to us. She will tap her diaper when it needs changing, goes to the refrigerator and points when she wants in it for a snack or drink etc.

Fun things we did since 15 month update - 
~ First trip to Chuck E Cheese for Miss Juliet's 2nd birthday party
~ First Easter Egg Hunts and 2nd Easter
~ A trip to Austin to visit her Great Grandparents
~ Trip to Lubbock to visit Aunt M & Uncle B and see Tech play baseball (this is the trip she had her seizure on)
~ Uncle Jacob's college graduation
~ Baby Sprinkle for Little Sister Ada
~ Rangers game with Amber and Payton
~ Rangers game with family
... plus countless playdates and fun with friends in between.

Goings on with Mommy & Daddy - We spend a lot of our time trying to get ready for Ada! My brother Jacob and his wife Stephanie were able to come out and help us with various projects a couple of weeks ago, that was seriously like 3 days worth of work had John and I tried to do it ourselves! Robert has helped us with a couple of big projects we had been putting off but the crazy amount of rain Texas has gotten put new urgency in the projects and I just couldn't physically help John with them. I've gotten all the big stuff done for Ada's arrival (cleaned & prepped all the gear and clothes etc), there are about 2 more "big" projects on the house that we would like to get done before her arrival, John's cousin Drew is going to come help him with one of them in the next few days.

In two weeks we have planned an "All about Cora" day and we're going to have a fun filled day all about celebrating her as an only child before Ada comes. I can't wait to share about it!