18 Month Appointment

On Tuesday I took Madeleine for her 18 month well visit.  I was dreading it because at 15 months she hated being there and the Dr told me 18 months was worse.  It was.  All in all she did fine and I just held her on my lap for most of the visit.  Dr. Knights said she considers this the last baby visit because now they start going once a year on their birthday.

I talked to her about Maddie's temper tantrums and she said it is best to ask M to "use her words" and explain that I don't know what she wants when she is crying and if she doesn't tell me then to walk away and ignore the behavior.  She is really testing me lately and it is exhausting.  I can't remember a day when she didn't throw a fit about one thing or another.  Lately, it is mostly about food.  She is very picky and she started swiping her food across her tray and pushing all the food to the floor.  I am very ready for this phase to be over.

For the most part she is ok with strangers after a bit.  I'm still taking her to the gym daycare and that is going ok.  I do have to give her a pacifier, which I'm hoping to break soon.  I don't give it to her in the nursery because they have more time to console her if she gets upset when we leave.

She is obsessed with our shy cat who we call BeeBee.  She walks around saying "BeeBee!" all the time and has figured out BeeBee likes to hide (from Maddie) under our bed so she will flatten out on her belly and call for her.  Maddie has also learned a lot of body parts: eye, hair, nose, ear, neck, belly, mouth, teeth, tongue, hands.  I'm still working on colors.

Here are her stats:

Height:  31  (25%)

Weight:  22lbs 11oz  (25%)

Head:  18.5  (50%)

The doctor is happy with her growth and said all in all she sounds like a normal toddler if not a bit advanced in her throwing temper tantrums at this age.  Great.

Here is a pic of Maddie at our Christmas Dinner Sunday evening at church.  This is her friend Emily and Emily's daddy Josh.  Maddie decided she wanted to sit on Josh's lap too so she backed her bottom into him and sat down.  It was pretty funny!