Harper: 17& 18 month catch up!

How did this happen? My baby has turned into a little girl! Doesn't she look big?

Harper had her 18 mo check up today and as we were leaving it occured to me that she hadn't made an appearance in a few months (oopsie sorry Mom) so here we go!  

(looking back I'm not that fond of the format I was using for Harper's updates so I'm stealing yours Danielle hope you don't mind :D )

Height/Weight --> 26 lbs and 32" tall.  Head is still "off the charts"...big brains I say!

Heatlh --> Firmly rooted in the 75th percentile (errr minus the big melon).  We've only had one or two bouts with Bronchilitis and have had to resort to her inhaler a handful times which is a far cry from last winter.  Actually this time last year she was being admitted to the hospital with RSV, which I'm perfectly happy to not repeat!!

One of our last few days at Grammy and Grampy's house

Clothes: Slowly creeping her way out of her 18mo clothes and into the 24/2T size.  It took me the longest time to figure out what the difference was between the sizes.  Turns out that 24 mo is a bit shorter in the legs and leaves more room for diapers but 2T = no more snap crotches, yup see ya later bye bye!!! 

When we moved into the new house in December we went through all of our bins and consolidated Harper's clothes and she may or may not have two rows of bins stacked 4 high of clothing 0-12 mo....ooops.  So if we have another girl we are SET! If not Baby Girl Brewer will be supplied with a  wardrobe for her first year of life and her parents wallet can thank us :)

Sleep:  Bedtime is still 7:30, although we've changed our bedtime routine a bit to help her transition to sleep better.  We play upstairs in her room from 6:30 to 7:00 and then it's Pj's, brush teeth, 2 books and a few minutes of Danielle Tiger if there's time.  Then it's hugs and kisses and lights out! When we lived with my inlaws she was waking up at around 5:15-5:30 out of necessity so that we could get ready and out the door in time.  Now that we live less than 3 miles from daycare she has transitioned to sleeping until 6am...ahhhhhh.  Now if only I could teach her to sleep until 7:30 or so on Saturday and Sunday only that would be great!

Milestones:  We've had lots of milestones in the past two months but none as big as this: People, we are PACIFIER FREE!!!! Shaun and I decided to take advantage of the holiday weekend two weeks ago to put Operation "Sayonara Sucker" into action. It is no secret that I had a love/hate relationship with that thing for the past few months but had been dreading taking it away because of how much Harper looooved it.
It had gotten to the point that if I held the paci by the rubber piece and clicked the handle back and forth she would let out a smeegle like squeal and drop whatever she was doing and come find me and her beloved "precious".  I knew waiting was only going to make it worse for both her and I and I wanted to give her some distance from it before she saw a new baby in the house with one (although I really don't know if I want the new baby to have one). 

Friday night we did our normal routine and put her to bed, no binky and haven't looked back since.  Not going to lie, I had to hide in the basement where Shaun was working so I wouldn't cave and go give it back to her (many Oreos were eaten too).  After 30 min of crying, I sent Shaun up to rub her back for a minute and that was the last we heard from her that night.  BOOM!  We've had a few bumps in the road but all in all she's handled the transition like a CHAMP!

In other milestones we've now entered into the pete and repeat stage so momma has to be extra careful with her mouth and we're doing all sorts of other fun things like speed crawling up and down stairs (we've never used baby gates and have opted to teach her how to navigate stairs safely instead), laughing at contextual things, and of course signing/talking up a storm!!

Baby gear love: Our first trip to Ikea scored Harper this brand new table and chair which she is now obsessed with.  Every morning the first things she points to is her table and chair and insists on sitting there to work on a puzzle for a few minutes before we get going for the day.

I can't forget to mention Donkey (pictured below) Harper got him for Christmas and LOVED him! Sadly he sprung a leak a day later so we had to replace him with Dino (seen in first picture).  He is easily this months fan favorite!

Outings: Because Shaun works every Saturday Harper and I tend to stay very busy going here and there, There aren't many places she doesn't go but here are some of our more special outtings over the past two months:

We moved into our new house 2 days before Christmas (YAY!!) so after opening up presents at home we headed back to Gram and Gramps for Christmas day.  

With winter comes sledding which we've done a few times this season already.  We have an annual sledding tradition of sledding on Christmas day which sadly ended in tears and blood for Miss Harper (don't worry she was just fine) Notice the binky? SO glad that thing is gone!  Harper also participated and raised $100 for her very first Mini March for Cystic Fibrosis at school.  Total numbers aren't in yet but I believe she was one of the highest fundraisers, GO HARPER!!! (Thank you to all who donated!)

Poor pumpkin

Harper also made her first trip to Ikea but more importantly her first stop at SONIC!!! We let her try her very first corn dog and it was love at first bite!!

Diapers: We've been in size 4 pampers for a few months now but I think our days in this size are numbered.

Diet:  Sigh...I struggle with this.  Harper eats very well for the most part and we try to give her a wide assortment of new foods on a regular basis but it feels to me as though she's stuck in a rut.  It's a constant guessing game of what will she eat today and what won't she but this mom refuses to short order cook which Miss Harper is quickly figuring out.  Every meal I try to give her two things I know she likes and will eat and one "new" thing.  Most times she'll try one bite of the new thing and spit it out and sometimes will refuse the things I know she likes as well....fickle toddlers... She also goes through spells where she doesn't want to eat anything and other days I swear she has a hollow leg.  I brought this up with her pediatrician the other day and he said "Toddlers haven't been alive long enough to ruin their self moderation so don't offer her anything and follow her lead.  If she's hungry she'll ask for food, if she doesn't want to eat that's fine too".  Mmm k then. 

Likes:  Dino the dinosaur, sticker books, coloring, running in and out of her new circus tent 8 million times. Any movie that has Tinkerbell in it and doing the Mickey Mouse "hot dog dance".  They have also been teaching her class "Red Light Stop and Green Light Go" (for safety reasons) and Harper LOVES to practice and tell us to "Stooooooop!"

Dislikes: Being told "no". Psssh who doesn't? 

See you next month!!