15 months.

fifteen months!  and i'm only one week late in posting.  haha.  this month has been absolutely crazy with the explosion of new activities and new words and full-on toddler-ness.  it's amazing to watch, really.  i want to hang on to each day but then i blink and a month has passed and i feel like all these amazing developments are being forgotten or overlooked for even more new things the next day. 

words: your signing and your verbalized words are both improving exponentially.  someone asked me if i was keeping a count of all your words, and i, shamefully, am not...but i think it's because you say a new word almost every single day.  recent additions to your vocabulary: toadstool ("toe-tool"), flower, bath, happy, outside, beans, berries, please  (peas), peas (also peas, but with no accompanying sign language), socks, shoes, tee-tee, and moon.  you sign please and thank you, mine, change my diaper, and frog, in addition to the ones you've been doing for a while now.  i cannot tell you how rewarding and awesome it is to be able to communicate with you with language instead of guessing what you might want. 

food and sleep: your eating is up and down, as it always has been.  there are days that you out-eat me and your dad (this past weekend we had brunch with some friends and you ate more than 3.5 and 2.5 year old boys combined!), and there are other days that you are just too busy or distracted or tired to eat a whole lot (this happens most frequently at school, where there is always something fun going on).  fortunately, when you are interested in eating, you are still not picky at all and do a great job getting lots of veggies and protein in.  fruit is still your favorite thing, with graham crackers coming in a close second.  oh, you also say "cracker" now, too.  i'm still nursing you in the morning and at night...some friends suggested i do a kind of don't-offer-don't-refuse plan, which is a great idea….but you're still asking at the regular times, so it looks like we're still at this for at least a little while longer.  i never thought i'd breastfeed this long, but i've really loved it. 

anyway, the sleep is still great as well, thankfully.  you have pretty much dropped your second nap all together, but will still take it one or two days a week.  you sleep 7-7 most nights, and your nap is usually around 11:30 and lasts 2-3 hours, depending on if you're at home or at school. 

activities: your level of independence continues to increase as well (the heartwarming and heartbreaking duality of motherhood).  you try very hard to put on your socks and shoes (socks are a huge challenge but you're getting ok at shoes).  you use a spoon or fork to eat (and successfully make it into your mouth most of the time!).  with direction, you will help put your toys away or throw your laundry in the hamper, etc.  you lift up your plate to let us know you're done with your meal (at school you walk your plate to the bin after meal time, but at home you're confined to a high chair, so that doesn't happen).  this led to a broken plate and a few tears last week, but is mostly pretty awesome.  you're very happy to sit and read books by yourself, or to toddle around the living room investigating various things while i get dinner/breakfast ready.  you laugh to yourself all the time and it cracks us up.  you love to look at and point to things in the sky: birds, planes, the moon, etc.  you are endlessly amused by making animal noises and we cannot get enough of those.  your favorite song right now is head, shoulders, knees, and toes.  you especially like to sing it in the bathtub and you giggle like crazy when we grab your toes. 

you are starting to demonstrate a bit of a stubborn streak at times.  in no way does this surprise me.  you've had your own opinion about everything since  day one, but you used to be much more easily distracted.  now, your will is stronger, so you throw little mini-tantrums when you want something more immediately than i can get it to you, or when you get frustrated that you can't quite perform a task yet.  for example, yesterday when i put you in the car, there was a cup of milk i had forgotten about in there (gross, i know.  i totally have a mom car now.  sigh.).  you saw it but it was out of your reach, and obviously i couldn't give you old gross milk.  you were signing and saying milk and please, but i told you i'd get you milk when we got home (future is not a concept you understand yet).  anyway, you were SO mad.  i felt horrible, but there really was nothing to be done.  i'm working on figuring out the best ways to work you through these moments.  i want to be firm and i want to discourage unacceptable behavior (duh), but i also am trying to think about how you're processing information and to be reasonable about my expectations for your reactions.  it's an interesting dance. 

we got you a potty for valentine's day (so romantic, we are), and you love it.  it's hilarious.  your teachers have a potty and help you sit on it during diaper changes.  it's obviously too early to be thinking about potty training, but we just like to encourage familiarity with the potty and an understanding of what it's used for.  you like to ask to sit on it and then immediately tell us you're done.  you then wave bye bye to the non-existent business in the potty.  this is clearly my fault from our cloth diapering and the way we dispose of the poop.  i would always say bye bye when flushing it after changing you, and now this is how you process what happens after toileting.  i can't decide if it's super weird or really cute.  ha. 
your fifteen month appointment is today, so i'll update with stats in a couple of hours...