First Word and her Walker!

Melanie said her first word on January 22. It was "Julie". Rob had both kids in his lap on the reclining chair in the kids bedroom and the lights were out so just the hall light was shining in and Rob kept repeating Julie's name, and Melanie would say it and tap Julie on the back or wherever. It was so cute. We were at the Library tonight and Rob was pushing Melanie in the stroller, they were across the room and I was looking at kid movies and I hear Melanie trying to get my attention, I look over there and she got the biggest grin and was waiving at me. Love her!

We had her IFSP with the Up to 3 program today and she met all of her goals that we had made for her 6 months ago. Her new goals are 

-Melanie will stack blocks and put toys into a container during play

Strategy: Give her large blocks to stack

-Melanie will walk independently as her primary way to get around

Strategy: Let her walk more in the walker

-Melanie will locate 5 familiar objects when named by family

Strategy: Hold the object close to her when named

-Melanie will consistently follow 5-10 routine 1 step commands with prompts.

Strategy: Direct her to do something she likes to do.

-Melanie will attempt to imitate a variety of facial expressions and easy sounds

Strategy: Practice animal sounds

-Melanie will communicate 3 wants/needs spontaneously using gestures, signs, visuals, or words.

Strategy: Give her choices and make her say/show her choice.

In all she is doing great and they were all so positive and excited about the progress she has made. She has done so well with the walker already.

 After her first week with the walker she is getting a lot better and faster, Julie wanted to push her and did a very good job helping her little sister. Didn't realize they were matching until I took this picture.

 She loves her walker, and will crawl over to it and kneel down next to it and start whimpering and touching it until we come over and help her walk with it. So funny, she also knows that she wears her braces with the walker and she does the same thing when she sees her braces on the table. Smart kid.

Once she gets that down better, they have gymnastics classes for these kids that we will be able to go to for her.

Melanie 23 months

 Hopefully I can get caught up on everything so I don't have to do a monthly picture overload.

So, Melanie loves to come into our room, and I have a bunch of shirts that are going to the DI that are sitting on the floor, and every time she comes in they end up all over. You would think I would pick them up and move them somewhere else. She has so much fun though.

 Christmas(another post), but she loved her baby bottle and stuck in in her mouth and started sucking.

 This kid got sick, started with not eating anything all day, which meant she has a sore throat and was going to get a cold. But this time she also started throwing up around 4:30, and with nothing in her stomach, it was just a lot of dry heaving. So so sad, I was headed to the store and I think she threw up just before I left and so I hurried and got what I needed along with some Pedialite and Hylands Complete Cold and Flu tablets. We gave her two under her tongue every 15 minutes or so for 7 doses along with squirts of pedialite from a syringe and she finally dosed off and took a little nap, and when she woke up around 10:30 she was feeling better and when I went to squirt some more pedialite into her mouth, she was drinking it so fast and wanted more. I hurried and filled her bottle up with some and she was just drinking as fast as she could, don't blame her she was hungry. She didn't want the pedialite after a bit but was still wanting more so I gave her some milk and she downed that and we were able to lay her down for bed with no more throw ups. She slept pretty well too. I was just glad we got some milk in her before she went down to sleep. I hate it when she has a cold, and this one was nasty.

 Julie wanted to play in the tub with Melanie and Melanie is really starting to have fun and splash around in the tub now. (We need to re caulk, so yes, it looks disgusting).

 Watching a video together with their big dog.

 She still loves sitting in the nook.

 She has been doing this lately, for about a week or so she would face plant and eat her food like this.

Love her hair and the cheerios stuck to her face in this one.

 She loves to get her fingers stuck in tight places. Her thumb is stuck in this blender bottle ball. She also gets them stuck in the heater vent slats, in my sisters necklace, in the shopping cart.

 I love this girls smile, it is just straight but I just love how her whole face lights up.

 Loving her green smoothie, drinking more and more each day.

 Common place for the kids to be, if Melanie is sitting with Dad, Julie has to come and have a seat to. She wants Daddy's attention.

 Love how straight her back is in this picture. Some things she likes right now is to take the shapes out of the box, play with blocks or balls. Still gets everything taken away by Julie. But she is fighting her ground more now, letting Julie know she is mad.

-She points at things now and makes a sound like she is saying a word and instead of pulling hair, she looks at it and grits her teeth while holding her hands up like she wants to pull it but doesn't. It is like she is growing out of this. One of my favorite things about her was when I would feed her bottle right before bed in her room in the rocking chair and she would have her eyes closed and she would reach her hands up and just pull at my hair. Really, it felt pretty good unless she got a tangle or just a few strands. 

-She is sleeping through the night again, waking up once a week if that, although sometimes she will wake up at 6 or 6:30 which is still early for her so I will feed her a bottle and then lay her back down and she will sleep usually until at least 8:00. 

We sure love you!