17 months

17 months old and a mere month away from being 18 months old? Just simply WOW.

We finally moved Anna up from size 3 diapers to size 4.  It is nice to have both of then in the same size diaper again.  Both are wearing mostly 12 month clothing, although more and more 12-18 month stuff is filtering in.  Anna does have a thing or two in 6-9 month that she can and does still wear... I even put her in a 3-6 month dress the other day.  She swam in that dress last August when she was almost 6 months old.  It was short, but otherwise fit her just fine!  About 50% of the time Sam or Anna are in 18 month pajamas.

While in the past few months Sam and Anna's vocabulary has taken off in lightning speed, this month was just steady progress in that area.  They are on the verge of putting multiple words together for phrases and sentences (I don't count things like "all done" and "I love you" as phrases because they represent a singular idea) like "go play outside?" but aren't quiet doing it yet.  When I say one, they will say "two" next or if I say "one, two" they say "three" next.  Sam and Anna are also enjoying repeating letter names from our refrigerator magnets, bath foam letters, or chicka chicka boom boom book.  They will happily repeat most of them and their sounds, except a few of them like V are tough for them to say.  Sam's favorite letters seem to be A and T, while Anna likes D, O and Q.  I find it interesting that he seems to like the letters without curves better, and she likes the ones with curves. I am not sure what words are "new" in the last month, since they have such a large vocabulary now.  "Goodnight" "thank you"and "poop" are the only ones I can recall, although I am sure there are more.  New signs they make include fan, sun, day, play, dad, work, cracker, hurt, outside, wind, tree, flower, cold, hot, no, stop, etc.

Within the last month, Anna and Sam are becoming more interactive while reading books.  They will say some of the parts from memory before I read them.  In Goodnight Gorilla, Anna will say "goodnight" throughout the book, and say "uh oh" and gasp like I usually do.  At the end they will both snore like the little mouse.  While reading Where's Spot?  They say "no" in all the appropriate spots.  In the past they were able to make animal noises in relation to an animal in a book, but now I can say "where's the dog, duck, ladybug?" etc.  and they will point to the animals I ask for.  Sam's favorite book lately is 10 Wriggly Wiggly Caterpillars.  Anna's favorite book is Ladybug's Lesson right now.

Anna's favorite toys are a new farm tractor that has 5 animals that make sounds and the cozy coupe. She adores riding in it and throws a fit if Sam gets in.  Today she demanded that he get "Out! Out!" and that he was "All done!!!" before collapsing on the driveway in full-on temper tantrum.  Sam's favorite toys right now seem to be our large beach balls because he's figured out how to kick them around.
 

New body parts they can identify are eyelashes, feet, mouth, and hands, in addition to the old ones: head, hair, ear, eye, nose, tongue and belly button.  Anna has discovered eyelashes because of the butterfly kisses I now give her before bedtime.  She'll grab my head and pull it in close and giggle as I blink and tickle her cheek or forehead with my eyelashes.  After I do that a while, she'll either try to give me butterfly kisses back with her eyelashes, or study my eyelashes up close.

Beyond their vocabulary, they are expressing their preferences for things a lot more.  For really the first time, they are particular about some things they want to wear.  Anna loves her hair clips and flower hairbands, and Sam often wants to wear them too, but they both seem to understand that they are Anna's.  She gets so mad when I attempt to put one in my hair instead of hers!  The girly girl in her is really showing now.  The other night she wanted to wear her tutu and sashayed around the house.  I also discovered that painting her toenails will grant me a little more leeway to clip her toenails.  Otherwise she wails and resists like I'm hurting her.  Sam is pretty thrilled when he gets to wear his wool newsboy hat.  They try to get us to put their sandals on instead of their daily shoes as well.  Sam has a favorite outfit that he likes to wear too- his bright yellow shirt with his blue plaid shorts.  Sam and Anna will also ask for specific food when it is not in view, like blueberries to eat. Sam will ask for more of things beyond food by saying and signing more- like more Baby Signing Time, or more music, or more playing outside.  Unfortunately, we're also getting a lot more "No"s too!
Sam has also taken to pushing me where he wants me to go.  If he wants us to play on our porch, he'll get behind me and push my legs in that direction.

This month I have seen some small changes in their fine motor skills.  Both have been able to successfully drink water out of a normal non-sippy cup.  Also when coloring, they will mimic vertical and horizontal lines I draw, instead of only scribbling back and forth.  Sam is also opening round door handles and helping himself to his milk or water cups in the frig whenever he wants by opening the door, too.  Sam seems to have finally mastered the art of closing drawers while keeping his fingers out of the way.  I can't wait until I can say the same about Anna!

Both Anna and Sam are working on molar #3- their bottom left molar is just barely peeking through.  Their top two molars are almost completely through now.  That makes the tooth tally Sam: 9, Anna:11.  I cannot wait until the last two molars are here for this go 'round and we can take a break until the next set of molars (hopefully?)  Double the teething pain from molars is no joke!  We've never had an issue like this before with any of the other teeth, but now we're even having trouble getting Anna to eat much, we think because of the molar pain.  Still no sign of Sam's lower two lateral incisors!

This month was a pretty illness free month, although Sam did get ear infection #5 since the end of February.  That's 5 ear infections in as many months.  Hopefully the tubes that were placed in his ears today will eliminate any of those in the future.  Anna developed a mild rash on her arms and legs after our trip to the cabin, but it didn't seem to bother her and decreased pretty quickly.  I am NOT looking forward to cold season and all the germs being back at school and daycare are sure to bring us.

We don't just have walkers now- we have two runners!  It only took a week for Anna to go from walking unsteadily to being completely comfortable on her feet.  Along with her confidence in walking, she's also shown a greater enjoyment in dancing by herself now: stomping her feet, twirling around and swaying.  That means we get to dance a lot more, since they aren't both clamoring to be in my arms while I dance!  It is so much easier to go outside with them since they can both independently toddle all over the yard investigating the world around them too.  We also discovered that they can climb up the rock wall and slide down one of the bigger slides all by themselves.  In the last month, Sam and Anna also learned how to walk up and down the stairs in our garage while holding onto the railing.  The other day I got home from an shopping trip, took them both out of their car seats- then Sam let our dog out of her kennel by himself and they both walked up the stairs and into the house by themselves.  Then Anna shut the door behind me since my arms were full of shopping bags.  It seems so long ago when I hauled two infant bucket car seats into the house!

The temper tantrums seem to ebb and flow in amount.  Month 14 there were a lot, month 15 there were less, and in month 16th the temper tantrums picked up a little again for us.  They just seem to be a little more testy this month due to the 6 molars that worked their way through gums this past month.  There seems to be a little more sibling fighting this month, probably because there is even less parallel play now and they have a hard time playing with the same toys interchangeably.  Although Sam is more grabby of toys out of Anna's hands, Anna's more stubborn about keeping toys once she has one.  Sam will give his up fairly often and "share."  Anna screeches and throws temper tantrums if you even suggest sharing or another toy to her.  Sam is definitely more rough- still likes to tackle, and is in a hitting Anna or Bella on the head stage.  He even pulled a clump of Anna's hair the other day.  Conversely, he's also still the most affectionate.  Sam loves his sister so much and gives her hundreds of kisses throughout the day.  Some readily accepted, some not!

With Anna's 5:30/6 am wake ups the last few days, we've had a few two nap days lately: from 9:30-11:30, and 2:30-3:30  They nap well for the first one, but have a hard time going down for the second, although on those days I know they need it and are tired.  Before that, most of the month we had 1-nap days from 12:00-2:30/3:30 when they were waking at 8 am for the day.  We'll be transitioning to an early bedtime with day care returning soon, since they will have a regular weekday wake time of 7 am. 

Food-wise, Anna has been harder to feed than she has in a long time.  She's drinking lots of milk but not eating really any meat and not much fruit these days.  Yogurt seems to be the only ace-in-the-hole I've got on a day when she won't eat much of anything.  I hope this phase passes quickly.  Her other food favorites are pickles, green vegetables like cucumber and green peppers, and black olives.  Sam is also on a yogurt kick and will eat almost anything we set before him.  He doesn't have an off button if you give him fruit like peaches or watermelon and will keep devouring pieces until you stop giving them to him.  Other favs lately are cheddar cheese and whale crackers.  He's also discovered the tastiness of dipping in BBQ sauce.  Now he won't eat any chicken nuggets unless they get dipped a little first!

I have really enjoyed being home with Sam and Anna this summer and spending so much time with them.  I can't believe it is almost over so quickly and they will be heading back to daycare for a few days already next week!