Clara 17 months

Clara turned 17 months on October 2, 2013. . . 

(Didn't have time to take a pic with her cute Etsy sticker as I have in past months, so instead I stole some pics from our recent CT vacay that will have to do. . . think they turned out pretty cute! Maybe if I get my act together I will get the sticker out and take some other pics. . . Maybe)

Loves:
Looking at the chandelier light in her bedroom
Books!! Loves turning the pages and intently staring at each page/picture. . . so cute!
Crawling all over the place
Pulling up on the ottoman & couch
Any toy with lights, music, sound etc (as long as the sound is not too loud, this can be a real fine line)
Putting anything and everything in her mouth
Playing on the couch and on mommy & daddy's bed (loves playing in all the big pillows)

Does Not Love:
Toilets flushing
Barking dogs (cue complete meltdown)
People yelling, cheering (even if happy cheers), etc
Sun in her eyes
When we wipe her nose, clean her face, etc

Eating:
She gets three 6 oz bottles of whole milk a day (working on sippy cup transition, will probably be a while, OT working on this during sessions).

While she is still mostly on pureed food (she spits out solid food,  a sensory issue) she has made MAJOR progress over the last few weeks. She will now swallow tiny pieces of. . .

strawberries
cheerios
puffs (has been eating these for a good while now)
elbow macaroni noodles (happened over the last week!)
cooked zucchini and potatoes (happened over the last week!)
string cheese (happened yesterday!!!!!)
the carrots or small pieces of veggies/pasta that are in the Stage 3 jarred baby food

Sleeping:
She sleeps like a champ. . . usually 10-12 hours at night and then naps between 2-3 hours during the day. Maybe three or so nights out of the week she will wake early morning (like between 3-5am) to play in her bed. She is 100% content and hardly fusses, so we just let her play to her hearts content. Eventually, she gets tired enough that she falls back asleep. Funny girl!

Schedule:
Her schedule for the day really depends on when she wakes for the day but usually looks something like this. . .
7:30am wake
8am - breakfast & bottle of milk
11:30am - lunch
12:30pm - bottle of milk and nap
3:30pm - small snack if needed with water/apple juice etc
5:30pm - dinner
7:30-8:30pm - bottle of milk and bed

Therapy schedule:
She gets private OT services 2x a week (OT also works on some social skills and also feeding issues) and ECI (Early Childhood Intervention) services 1x a week. Speech therapy will be added in near-ish future. (We are currently battling wtih insurance to get speech therapy coverage. . . this has only been going on for. . . months. . . fun times! Seriously at the point of hiring a claims specialist!! Will stop there in order to prevent a serious tangent.)  

Development:
She can now pull to stand on most any object! Woohoo! This has been so fun to see. Once she pulls up, she has started shifting her weight and stepping front to back (where before she would pull up and then just stay stuck in an awkward position until I shifted her feet). She is not cruising around objects yet, but that is ok. We are enjoying this new milestone!

Progress in the eating department - see above

She now lets us brush her teeth w/ baby toothpaste (I use the word brush somewhat loosely). But this is huge considering that for the last five months she would not even let us get the toothbrush anywhere near her mouth.

Two weeks ago in therapy she (for the first time) showed the true signs of object permanence! We have been working on this for a long time. We covered up one of her fav toys with a towel, and she promptly pulled the towel off to find it!

She has started swatting our hands away when we are doing something she doesn't like, or when our hands are covering up a toy or getting in her way of whatever she is wanting to do, etc. Some parents might be annoyed with this behavior, but oh my goodness this is something we have been working towards and praying for! Her therapist was THRILLED the first time Clara swatted her hand away :).

We recently had her reevaluated by another specialist who reports that Clara is more like a 8-9 month old in motor/nonverbal skills and a 3-4 month old in verbal skills. This is right in line with what the neurologist and various other professionals have stated and we also agree. The key in all of this is that she continues to make progress, and that she has not regressed in any area. So thankful for this b/c regression can be a sign of lots of other issues. So we press on. . .

She will get glasses in the next few months. . . we will see how that goes, ha! But nonetheless she will be super cute in her teeny tiny baby toddler glasses. :)

Adventures: 
We took a weekend trip with our church small group at the end of September to a TeePee Motel not too far away from home. It was so fun! Despite Clara's expression below, she really did have a good time!

Just got back Wednesday night from our annual CT vacation! Recap post with pics coming next week!

Cannot believe my little girl is 17 months. Time if flying, per usual, but we are really soaking in and enjoying the ride, even on the hard days. Cannot believe in three months my little baby will no longer by my baby! Crazy!

Have a great weekend!