Yesterday was Alethea’s fifteen month birthday.  Happy Birthday, Baby Girl!

It’s hard to imagine that only a year ago she was only 3 months old and waking up 6-8 times a night and couldn’t hardly move anywhere.  Now she’s an amazingly good sleeper (under normal conditions) and is into absolutely everything!  What a difference a year makes…

We went to the doctor today for Alethea’s check-up.  Her current stats are height – 30.75 inches, weight – 22.0 lbs, and head circumference – 46.75 cm.  That means she is in the 50th percentile for height, 30th for weight and 70th for head circumference.  She is still our little Bobble Head Baby!

The thing that I found surprising is that she has actually lost weight since her 12 month check-up.  Her pediatrician isn’t too worried at this point since she also managed to grow over an inch, but we are supposed to encourage Alethea to eat a few more carbs at meal times.   One thing her doctor asked me was whether Alethea is a picky eater and I told her that while Alethea does go through phases, she’s generally quite open to trying different foods.  The main problem at meal times is that Alethea just has too much to say and gets distracted so easily that we constantly have to remind her of why she is in her highchair.  If we don’t, an hour will easily pass and Alethea will still be sitting there talking away about who knows what.

Besides growing an inch, Alethea’s other recent accomplishments include learning how to climb up on the kitchen chairs to take stuff off the table, which is okay generally, but one of the first times she did it I ended up chasing her down the hallway as she ran away from me carrying a butter knife.  That was fun.  She also said her first two words together, which were “go, car”.  She is, after all, my social butterfly…

Speaking of being a social butterfly, this girl could charm the socks off of the grumpiest old man you know.  I tell you, we go out in public and she smiles at everyone.  People seem really drawn to her, which is sort of odd to me, just because I certainly don’t have one of those magnetic personalities.  But she does.  Oh and did I mention her waving repeatedly to a woman driving a car in the parking lot?  She waved and waved until the woman finally waved back.  It was really amusing to watch her determined effort to get the woman’s attention.

The flip side of her outgoing and assertive personality is that she often becomes so determined to have her own way that she will scream at Peter or me (and even on occasion Grandma) if she doesn’t get what she wants.  We are still trying the “don’t ever give in and ignore whenever possible” tactic, but so far, it doesn’t seem to be helping.  I don’t think I really realized until now just how embarrassed I would be when my child acted up in public and how helpless I feel when she is too young for corporeal punishment, too young for time outs, and too young to be reasoned with.  What is a mother to do?

It doesn’t help that so often she makes me laugh in the middle of discipline, like yesterday when she was being super whiny, so I said sternly, “Do you need to go to your room?”  She solemnly nodded her head yes.  Or just tonight she was chewing on a book, and I told her, “Out of your mouth.”  She just chewed harder, so I took the book away.  She screamed at me and picked up another book, looked right at me, and put that one in her mouth.  So I took that book away too.  She screamed again and since there were no other books in sight, she glared at me and proceed to chomp down hard on the couch cushion.  Sigh.

I don’t mean to make her sound like a contrary little girl.  We spend a lot of time laughing and smiling through the day.  Alethea currently loves: being tickled, reading books to herself out loud, playing with her Little People farm animals, cars, balls, nuks, dogs, flowers, and chicken nuggets.  She also adores her grandmothers and will ask for them several times a day (“ma-ma-ma?”)

Well, this is getting quite long, so I’d better wrap up and head for bed.  Thanks to all of you still checking in for updates.  I’ll try to get some more recent cute pics of Alethea up soon.