Sweet Pea is 14 months old!!

I’d say, since we went through all her stomach issues, this month has been the most difficult!!

And it is mainly because she is developing a little will, she is very mobile and meal time is just not fun.

Her little will…The baby that has been so laid-back since birth is now starting to voice her dislikes. And there are LOTS of them. She does not like for her morning milk to run out in her cup. She does not like diaper changes. She doesn’t like her cream to be put on her cheeks. She doesn’t like certain things sister does to her. She doesn’t like most foods. (More on that later.) She doesn’t like water to be poured on her head during bathtime. She does not like her face to be cleaned. I am sure there are more.

Sweet Pea is either extremely quiet or VERY loud! There is no medium volume. Her cry is just…funny. I know that sounds mean but she is SO dramatic when she cries. Her cry is always intense, even if she just fell and barely tapped her toe. Dramatic has become her middle name! There is no half-cry. She is an all or nothing baby when it comes to crying! Which is pretty funny considering this baby used to rarely cry at all. Now, she cries at the drop of a hat because her middle name is Drama.

Her mobility took off this month! She zips around the house at turbo speed. At 13 months we finally had to start closing the hallway gate and closing our bedroom door again. These were things we had already done months before with Little Bug!

The week Sweet Pea started “getting into everything” she: splashed with the water in the toilet bowl, found the toilet brush and was playing with it and climbed half way up the stairs at my parents’ house.

The week before turning 14 months old, she started standing up on her own. She won’t walk without support though, but it won’t be long now before she is walking! She started cruising the furniture as well around this same time. And she has mastered walking with the push toy! This picture is blurry but I love her face because she was so proud of herself!

She is learning what “no” means. Her no-no’s are: the candles on the coffee table, pictures on the end tables, the blinds, the TV and Daddy’s computer – all of which are in the living room. She actually found the “on” button for the TV and that is her favorite thing to do now.

Eating. I am not sure exactly what is going on. Picky eater? Maybe. I don’t know. But she refuses to eat some things that she devoured no problem even just a day ago! It’s quite frustrating since Little Bug has been a pig since birth when it comes to food.

I almost feel like Sweet Pea is this way because I introduced table foods to her “wrong” or something. Like I said, I don’t know what is going on…

She eats NO table food veggies so I still give her purees so that she gets her veggies. To encourage her to eat more table foods, I’ve tried to give her those first before her purees, but she has flat out refused to eat!!

I thought it could be teething but I see no pattern to indicate it is.

So, meal time, right now, is just not fun!

I have gotten Sweet Pea to give any unwanted food to Mama instead of throwing it on the floor. She remembers to do this about half the time!

Just this past week, as she was about to turn 14 months, there were two days that she just did not sleep for her morning nap at all! Since this just started, I haven’t really figured out yet what she needs to do with her naps. Most likely, she just needs to shorten the morning nap again and then possibly start that nap at 10am instead of 9:30am. Then, based on that nap, her afternoon naptime might need to shift 15 minutes or so. In the next couple of days I will work on tweaking things until I find what meets her needs.

There was also one night where she took 45 minutes to fall asleep at night, which she has never done before. That is just another sign to me that she is starting the morning nap wean and I need to make some adjustments to her sleep schedule.

Because her morning nap has shortened over time, she is now awake for about half of our Learning Time! This can be interesting because it is a little more challenging to work with Little Bug while her toddler sister is around instead of sleeping! For now, I am just going to try and incorporate Sweet Pea into our learning times as much as possible. I will try to do the activities that Sweet Pea really can’t be a part of while she is sleeping, and then when she is awake she will join us. At this age, I am thinking she will just have a ball playing with materials that we are using that are safe and fun for her to play with!

One day Little Bug and I were painting Fall Trees, so I let Sweet Pea play with all the paint bottles on the kitchen floor. That worked perfect. It kept her entertained and then when we were done we all sat on the floor and we talked about the colors together!

Sweet Pea is still uneasy around crowds. She wants her Mama when she is uneasy, which I love! She cries every Sunday morning when I drop her off in her class (which is the only time of week that she is away from me) but I pick her up and she is all smiles and I know she has a good time there and loves her teachers. Again, she just has to be dramatic!

Big Sister still hung the moon. I absolutely LOVE to hear this baby giggle at her big sister. It is such a precious sound and one I hear daily. I have no idea most of the time what they are giggling about, but Little Bug is the funniest thing ever to Sweet Pea. They have so much fun playing together.

If Sweet Pea is crying for whatever reason Little Bug will start singing, “Jesus Loves Me” to her!

Sweet Pea doesn’t really have any new words since last month but she is an excellent communicator even still. It is so funny to me to see her actually express her opinion about something because for a year I have basically done whatever with this baby and she has just gone with it, but now, she has opinions about things and knows what she wants to do!

We were at a pool birthday party and Dave and Little Bug left Sweet Pea and me sitting at the table and headed to the pool. Sweet Pea was sitting in her stroller and started reaching for the pool and her Daddy. She wanted to go swimming too! So I put her in her swimsuit and gave her to her Daddy where she spent the next half-hour swimming. One of my parents neighbors had offered to let us use their pool while they were on vacation and Sweet Pea did NOT want to swim then. (The water was too cold.) So it was fun to watch her basically ask to go swimming and then have a ball in the pool with her daddy and sister!

Sweet Pea also loves going to the park and swinging. She let me know she didn’t want to get out by crying!

She enjoys playing with this toy.

Even though Sweet Pea has become quite opinionated this past month, she is still her sweet little self. She is such a tender-hearted little girl!

Schedule (13 months old):

8am wake up

9:30-10:45am nap

11:30-12:00pm Independent Play

12:00pm Lunch

1:30-4/4:30pm Nap

6pm Dinner

7pm Bath

7:30/7:45pm bedtime

Happy 14 Months, Sweet Pea!!

- Elaine