18 months

L is 18 months old and has now officially been with us longer than she was in Korea.  How is it possible that 9 months have passed already?  Geesh.

We had her 18 month checkup today and she weighed in at 23 pounds (25-50th percentile), which is a percentile jump in the weight category.  That isn't surprising, given that she is eating like a maniac lately.  You wouldn't believe what this little girl can put down.  She ate three full size pieces of pizza the other day - crusts and all!  She is 32 inches tall (50-75th percentile), so she is slipping down in the percentiles height-wise.  Disappointing, as I had big plans to groom her into a Korean super model.  And her head circumference is a whopping 19 inches (90th percentile), so clearly she is destined for Mensa.

Overall, the pediatrician thinks she is doing great.  I asked her about her excessive drooling and the fact that she seems to have her mouth open a lot and breathes a lot through her mouth.  She said that it could all be completely normal and will resolve with time, or she could have enlarged adenoids (which can cause all of those things), so she referred us to an ENT to get her checked out.  Frankly, I'm kind of hoping she does have some sort of ENT issue that can be corrected somehow, because I don't know how much more of this drooling I can take! lol!

 

checking out what the dog is eating

Here are some highlights of Miss L at 18 months:
-  She is sleeping like a champ.  She goes down between 7:30-8 at night and wakes about 8:00 in the morning, though can sometimes sleep even longer.  She usually takes one, 2 1/2-3 hour nap in the afternoon.  She rarely wakes at night and is a very sound sleeper.
- She eats anything that isn't nailed down.
- She loves seaweed.  She chomps on it like it's candy.  But I can't stand the smell of her breath for the rest of the day.
-She loves 'cooking' things in the new kitchen she got for Christmas and feeding us and her baby dolls.
- She is really into dolls and stuffed animals now - even more than she was before.  She carries them around everywhere and frequently hugs and kisses them.
- Still no talking going on, though she does say "uh oh" now.  She tries really hard to repeat words when we ask her, but nothing really comes out right.
- When she gets in trouble for something, she immediately puckers her lips and lunges forward to kiss you!  What a little manipulator, eh?
- Nothing makes her laugh more in this world than her brothers.  Boy does she think they are hilarious!
- She seriously loves dogs.  Any dog.  She gets totally animated and starts 'talking' and squealing away every single time we come across a dog.  She follows our dog around and tries to hug and kiss her.  Unfortunately, the affection is pretty much just one sided. ;-)
- She has a peculiar habit when she is done eating.  She will do the sign for "all done", but every.single.time we go to take her tray away (even if she has been sitting there for a really long time without eating and rejecting everything we give her), she starts grabbing at whatever food is left on her tray. She literally cannot get down from her highchair without swiping some food from her tray.  She throws a big hissy if we don't let her take something. 
- She loves to have her picture taken and will pose for us now. 
- She loves clothes and seems to instinctively know when she has something super cute on.  She will 'model' and twirl her skirts and dresses for daddy.

- She gets scared every time she hears the garbage truck (or any other loud truck) or a loud plane fly overhead and starts screaming and runs to me to pick her up.
- As of a couple of weeks ago, she can now walk down the step from the kitchen into the family room completely independently without sitting down first or holding on to the wall.

- She is the biggest whiner I know and she throws a complete hissy fit when she doesn't get her way.  Yep, she's a total drama queen, and she's all mine ;-).

Nice black eye from falling into the fireplace.