Eighteen Month Baby Update

[dorchadas]

I didn't get a chance to write yesterday because it was my father's 70th birthday, so he came into the city to see Laila. We didn't do much that's exciting, but he also didn't fill his entire visit with home improvement projects, so he got to spend the entire visit playing with Laila (other than her nap time).

I wrote last time that she was down to one nap, and that's mostly true now, but it's been an uneven transition. She generally takes a single nap around two hours long, but if she hasn't slept well the previous days she'll go back to two naps. She's also outgrown her baby sleeping sacks and now we put her in footie pajamas and under a small blanket, since she's old enough that it's not dangerous anymore. That doesn't mean that she has any expertise in using them yet, though--one of my standard tasks as her father is that when I go to bed, I always sneak into her room and check on her to make sure she's doing okay, and inevitably I have to take the blanket and tuck her back in since she's rolled out of it somehow. She's always nice and warm when I come in and check her in the morning, though, so I don't have to worry about her freezing. Even her hands are warm.

In the most important news yet, though, she's walking! :

She has a lot of opinions.

It's like one day she just decided that it was time to put everything into practice and ever since then she's been a walking champ. She still has some baby unsteadiness but she can crouch down and pick things up, stop and turn around, start walking immediately if I set her on her feet after I've picked her up...I wonder if it was a confidence issue before, or if she didn't see the utility of walking comparing to crawling? But now she has and she's walking everywhere, which means we need to keep an extra eye on her. She walked three blocks back from the park holding my hand! And then climbed the stair back up to the house at the end.

The really funny part is how she'll imitate my exercise. Our condo is laid out lengthwise like most Chicago condos, so I'll walk up and down the hallway to get steps in. Laila does it too--she'll walk up and down the hall and when we pass each other, she'll look up at me, put out a hand on my leg to steady herself, and then walk around me and keep going.

She also has much more personality, which means that she complains more. Previously it was related to food but now sometimes when she doesn't get her way--if she grabs something she shouldn't have and we take it away from her, or if she wants to play right now but we're busy with something--she sometimes gets offended and starts crying. We'd had a couple collapse on the floor in tears moments, but at least right now they never last long. It's an important developmental sign but it's still a bit disconcerting. At least right now it's easy to redirect her!

How much more will she grow and change?