Family Friday: 18 Months Old

It’s hard to believe that Cameron is one and a half years old already!  Life is certainly getting easier as she gets older, although taking her monthly photo is still a challenge.  I need her facing forward so that I can Photoshop her onesie and it would be nice to have her looking at the camera and smiling.

We tried two different locations last week to get this month’s photo…  the first location was the pergola structure Haleiwa Beach Park which looks pretty from a distance but is actually quite run down.  Cam was not a fan and did not want to be there.  The second location was simply a old scenic dirt road nearby.

I knew I didn’t get any good photos of her looking up at the camera that day so I had plans to go back and try again… which is why this blog post is late.  We never did get the chance to go back because of the weather but after finally going through the photos that I already took, I fell in love with one despite that fact she is looking down.

At 18 months, Cameron is approximately 23 lbs and 30 inches tall.  She is wearing size 4 diapers, mostly size 18 month clothing, and just moved up to size 5 shoes (her feet are finally growing).

Cam got her first two teeth when she was 9 months old.  Now, nine months later, she has all of her teeth except for the second set of molars that should come in during her 2nd year… although at her rate, she may get them sooner than later.

Cameron eats three meals and one snack a day.  She is a fantastic eater and will try most foods but she is not a fan of most vegetables.  She especially hates potatoes (all forms of) which is funny because that’s the food I ate most while I was pregnant.  She also no longer likes carrots which used to be her favorite food!  To make sure Cam eats some vegetables, I make veggies muffins (such as these Whole Wheat Zucchini Carrot Apple Muffins) which she will happily eat and ask for more.  Cam drinks water all day but does not like to drink milk or juice.  Thankfully she loves cheese and fruit so I make sure she has those things at most every meal.

Last month, Cameron weaned herself off of bottles.  In this past month, we have packed away all bottles and sippy cups.  Well, all sippy cups except for one… we kept out her Tommee Tippee Lil Sippee Trainer Cup because it “drinks like a cup” and she loves it.  We switched over to cups with straws (for example, First Years Take & Toss Straw Cups) and to the AVENT Natural Drinking Cups which are spill proof but are exactly like drinking from a real cup.

Cameron sleeps 12+ hours every night and takes one 2 hour nap during the day.  I’m not sure she actually sleeps the entire night but at least she doesn’t wake us up crying.  Occasionally I will wake up to her laughing or talking to herself at an odd hour in the early morning.  Lately Cam has been trying to put off bedtime… needing one more story or needing to get one more toy to sleep with.  It could go on all night so we have to say good-night and leave the room.  She cries for about a minute and then settles down to go to sleep.

Cameron’s most said words right now are hi, wow, no, this, that, and uh-oh.  When she sees a baby (in a picture or real life) she says awwwww and when she sees food she says num num.  She knows which animals say roar, meow, woof, and moo, and thinks every other animal goes ah ah ah.

Cam is doing great with her physical coordination.  She can wave, clap, dance, climb, walk backwards, spin in a circle, march in place, run walk very quickly, and almost get both feet off the ground when jumping.

While video chatting with my parents last week, my mother asked Cameron some questions like “Where is your nose?” and “Where is your hair?”  It was cute seeing her answer them but it suddenly made me realize that we have never asked her specific questions like that before!  We did finally ask her about everything else… it turns out that she knows her belly, feet, hands, nose, mouth, teeth, eyes, and hair 🙂

I know that Cameron knows a lot of things but I guess I don’t feel the need to question her knowledge or force her to demonstrate her knowledge.  She will get enough of that at school someday and I had my fill of it being a teacher.  If I say after eating “Let me wipe off your hands,” and she holds them out for me to wipe, that shows her knowledge just as well as randomly asking “Where are your hands?”  I don’t want Cameron to ever feel that it is necessary to tell me the right answer or show me that she can do something in order for me to be proud of her.  I am going to try my hardest to nurture her interests and create self-driven motivation so that she can be proud of herself.  I encourage Cameron to explore and figure things out for herself, I provide her with opportunities to experience new sensations and ideas, and I tell her about things that I do and things she shows interest in.  I know she is absorbing everything and learning new things every day just by interacting with me and the world around her.

Cameron loves to read books, loves her dolls and her truck, loves animals, loves hearing music, loves playing the keyboard and other instruments, loves pushing her shopping cart around, loves purses and shoes, and loves scooping and pouring.  She loves taking things out of drawers and she almost always puts everything back, just not as neatly as it once was.  She likes getting her hair fixed but does not like brushing her teeth.  She mimics a lot of things that I do and things she sees other people do.  She give kisses and hugs but only when she wants to which makes her random, unexpected hugs the sweetest thing ever 🙂