Sweet Pea is 15 months old!!

This baby cracks us up. She is all smiles being her sweet self and then the next moment she is crying her dramatic tears only to be smiling again moments later.

I wrote the following a few days before Sweet Pea began walking:

And, yes, she may be 15 months old and technically not a “baby” anymore but she still seems very baby-ish to me probably because she is not walking and still prefers to crawl! Little Bug lost her baby look the day she started walking and I know Sweet Pea will too. She can often be found crawling around the house with this hat on!

Sweet Pea just isn’t eager to walk. She stands up and takes a few steps before resorting to crawling many times throughout the day, but crawling is just way faster for her right now. I predict she will become a walker by 16 months. 

(Ha! Mama was wrong on that one!!)

For about a week, Sweet Pea’s naps had been a little wonky. She just wasn’t sleeping much for her morning nap and then, one day, she took over an hour to fall asleep for her afternoon nap! Well, on October 30th, Sweet Pea laid down for her morning nap a crawler and, an hour later when I got her up after sleeping about 15 minutes, I put her on the living room floor and she started walking all over the place!

And just like that…she became a walker!!

Look at those tiny feet.

Sweet Pea is still eating pureed veggies! She won’t eat table food veggies and she will still eat the purees so for now I am going with it. She is doing good with other table foods and eats table foods minus her one jar of veggie at lunch and dinner.

She drinks about 12-18 ounces of whole milk each day. She makes up for the rest in yogurt. This baby loves her some yogurt. When you bring it out and ask if she wants some, boy does she get excited. When we first started giving her yogurt she would literally cry when the container was empty. It was the most pathetically, cute thing I’ve ever seen her do. Now she knows that the container will go empty and she has accepted that fact and moves on with life after eating all her yogurt.

Sweet Pea takes a morning and afternoon nap. The morning nap keeps getting shorter. She either shortens it or I shorten it every so often to preserve her long afternoon nap. Right now it’s about 1 hour long and her afternoon nap is 2.5-3 hours. She’s been at this schedule for a while now and I know she is going to need some tweaking to her schedule done, soon. I’m starting to see the signs now. First thing I will do is shorten morning nap to 45 minutes.

Sweet Pea does not get into things like her big sister once did. We will see if this continues now that she is a walker! She will find something that interests her and sit and play with it for the longest time before moving to something else. She does love to play in the Tupperware cabinet. Before Sweet Pea discovered it, it was all organized but now it is a complete mess since she plays in there so much. I love when my babies discover the Tupperware cabinet – easy and cheap entertainment!

Sweet Pea still does Independent Playtime in the pack n play. We are in the process of working up to 45 minutes. She will sometimes clean up her toys when she knows the timer is about to go off! She cleans up by throwing all the toys out as she did in this picture:

Sweet Pea is still my quiet, reserved, laid back little baby. She still clings to me when anyone except my mom or Dave tries to take her from me. I was so proud of her tonight though. We were at Dave’s parents’ house and Little Bug, Aunt Amanda and Grandpa were ridding in the back yard on the golf cart around the pond. Sweet Pea saw them and started pointing so I asked her, “Do you want to ride or do you want to stay with Mama?”. She indicated that she wanted to ride! So I handed her off to Aunt Amanda and off they went. I fully expected her to look back and realize she wasn’t with me and start crying, but big girl rode all the way around the pond and enjoyed herself! I was so proud of her. It is fine for her to be quiet and shy (she is like her Mama in this area) but I want to work at developing some independent and confidence in her apart from being with Mama!

Sweet Pea says three words: Mama, Dada and Amen! When we pray at meals, many times Sweet Pea will say “Amen” along with us. It’s not a clear “Amen” but you can hear an “A” and “M” sound and she only does that after we pray so I know that is her version of “Amen”! For only having three words, she communicates really well. It is mostly by pointing which is something she just started this month. She also communicates well by making sounds that aren’t words, but when she does it it is obvious (to me and those who know her well) what she wants.

She has developed a love for books this month. I read to her before her naps. I had to figure out the best way to do this because Little Bug was distracting her from reading. So now, Little Bug goes into her bedroom while I read to Sweet Pea so that Sweet Pea will pay attention to the books instead of her sister! Sweet Pea has a few favorite books. She is into any book that you can feel, open and lift flaps and any book that has pictures of babies. She will lean down to give the babies a kiss!

The sister relationship continues to grow and develop. It is so fun to watch. I LOVE hearing my girls playing together. I LOVE hearing Sweet Pea laughing at or with her sister. It is the best sound ever. For the most part, they play pretty well together. Every so often Little Bug gets too rough with Sweet Pea and she has had enough and lets Little Bug know with a dramatic cry. I remind Little Bug to show love to her sister and that usually helps them go back to playing happily together.

I know this is a broken record when I say this, but time is going by so fast with these two girls. I look at Sweet Pea toddling around the house and it literally seems like yesterday that we were watching Little Bug take her first steps across the living room floor.

Sweet Pea was the perfect addition to our family and I love watching her grow and develop at her own little pace.

She is the sweetest little thing I’ve ever seen.

Sweet Pea’s schedule (14 months old):

8am wake

9:45-10:45am nap

11:15-12:00 Independent Playtime

12pm Lunch

1:45-4:00/4:30pm

6pm Dinner

7pm bath

7:30/7:45pm bedtime

Happy 15 Months, Sweet Pea!!

- Elaine