Here are a few photos of Lauren exploring the tight spaces in our house. She loves trying to fit everywhere.
Lauren climbs into the clothes basket now whether it has clean or dirty, folded or unfolded clothes in it.
Lauren likes to sit on top of Daddy's boots and between our shoe rack and organizer.
Dumping toys out of containers and then climbing in them is lots of fun too!
Lauren had her one and a half year old check-up yesterday. Wow...I can't believe how quickly she is growing. Anyway, everything went well except it turns out she has a double ear infection. Even though I felt like a horrible parent for not noticing this earlier, I was grateful that she is such a little trouper she didn't even let us know she was hurting. Lauren is growing well and exhibiting many of the behaviors expected from a one and a half year old. She has really started playing with her toys instead of just carrying them around the house. She still loves her books and spends lots of time making animal noises. The amount of words she can say now is just growing by the day. Airplane and applesauce are two of her new favorites. She has also started realizing her friends' names and is using them as well. With all of this comes much more testing of Mommy and Daddy though. It seems as if more of Lauren's dinner ends up on the floor now because she throws it, rather than in her mouth. Dr. Siegel assured me it's ok if she doesn't eat as much now, but it's still hard for me, as a mom, to be ok with this. Lauren has also started having tantrums when she doesn't get what she wants, especially her milk or "gilk" as she calls it. We are adjusting to these behaviors and trying to work through them. She is much more fun to interact with though!
One of the most difficult new behaviors though is Lauren waking up in the middle of the night screaming. She is doing this about once or twice a week and at about the same time each night. The only way we can get her to calm down is if we go in her room and then rock with her. However, even if she falls back asleep, she jolts back awake when we try to put her back in her crib and screams even more. I asked the doctor about this yesterday and he said it seems like she is having nightmares and we should go check on her, but leave her in her bed to calm herself back down. Oh boy.....this is going to be a tough one. If anyone else has any suggestions, please let us know! I guess all the sleep we were able to bank when Lauren was a little baby is coming back to get us!
Happy Spring!
