Sylvia is 1-1/2

Sylvia is 18 months old!

I asked Max what I should write, and he said, "I don't know... this is why I don't blog.... 'Here's our baby! She's a monkey.'"

Anyway, Sylvia is doing well. She's active and friendly. She laughs at the mice in Cinderella. She yells "bah" to demand that we give her a z-bar, to announce that she is throwing a ball, and to indicate her excitement at the prospect of bath time. She has started playing a game where she covers her stuffed animals with a blanket, pats them, and says "nigh nigh". She's a real little person.

I had a treatment for my kidney stones a few weeks ago and was a little out of it. It seemed to make her a little anxious and needy, but she got over it as soon as I did. Since then, though, she seems to have been a little uncomfortable and grouchy. We haven't quite figured it out yet, but she's still mostly a very sweet and pleasant little girl. Who wants few things more than to eat crayons, drink bath water, and projectile spit out actual food and drink.

Anyway, here is our baby:

She is a monkey.

52 weeks of Sylvia - just 7 1/2 months behind schedule

For Sylvia's first 6 months, we took daily pictures of her in the same chair so that we could put together a slideshow of how she changed in that time. For the following 6 months, we relaxed to taking weekly pictures.

Here I give you, weekly photos of Sylvia's first 12 months:

Quicker version (10 seconds)

Slower version (1 min)

There you have it -- only about 7 months late!

After Sylvia's first birthday, we switched to monthly photos, so maybe one day you'll get to see some of those!

How can it be?! Kurt is three!

We fell in love with him before he was born, and now Kurt is 3 years old!

Two years ago, I posted the 'Kurt Show'. Last year, I reflected on how much we missed Kurt since his parents whisked him away to Canada (here). Another year, and we find ourselves still missing him!

This is how we usually get to see him (via webcam):

We were so used to seeing him and his parents all the time, that we just couldn't stay away. We managed to get to see them a few times over the past year, and here are some of my favorite photos from those visits:

Happy Birthday, Kurt!!

We love you so much, and we hope to see you soon!

Sylvia is 17 months old!

And has now seen her second Hanukkah and Christmas, and is coming up on her second New Year. The holidays were a little rough on our little girl. She had a lot of wonderful time with wonderful family, and she was showered with excellent gifts. But she also had some of her best meltdowns... You'll have to decide for yourself whether this was your classic holiday existential crisis or if it had to do with being dragged around in the car and being thrown off of her sleeping routine.

It's quite something to think of how much she has changed since her last winter holiday season, when she was just starting to eat "solid" foods and was just barely starting to get the hang of sitting up without support.

We can see more and more little ways that she seems to be changing and understanding more and more of what's going on around her. We have figured out about 20 words that she says (although some of them seem to come and go), but she definitely understands a lot more than that.

She's a lot of trouble! Running around, climbing, going after everything that looks like it might be fragile or dangerous... So much fun, though!

Sylvia is 16 months old!

Another month, and now our little baby is 1-1/3, and absolutely brimming with personality! Likes include: banging on anything like a drum, opening and closing doors, throwing dirt all over herself, chewing on books. Dislikes include: not getting what she wants when she wants it.

At Sylvia's 15-month checkup a few weeks ago, her pediatrician declared her 'beautiful' and was generally very happy with how she's doing. She's maintained her recent record of being a smidgen shorter and heavier than average. And her head circumference is now only the 80th percentile! When she got her vaccines, she cried less than ever before.

Sylvia's pediatrician visit isn't the only bloggortunity that I have missed this month. Sylvia has been busy!

First, Sylvia was a fairy princess for her second Halloween

Then, Sylvia finally met her Great Uncle Ernie, Great Aunt Marlene, and Great Great Uncle Jack. Normally, I would have made sure to take a bunch of great pictures, but I was distracted with kidney stones. You'll have to take my word for it that Sylvia got along great with everyone and was a real little charmer, even when I had to leave her to make a surprise trip to the emergency room.

Next, we had a fabulous visit from our fabulous friends Jeff, Jayne, Kurt & Maria. Sylvia had a ball with all of them, and there were many photo ops with the 3 little 'uns.

We took advantage of the opportunity for a little re-enaction.

Halloween 2009:

November 2010:

About a week later, we were off to San Diego and Orange County to celebrate Sylvia's second Thanksgiving. It was an excellent trip, only diminished by Sylvia having a few molars slowly making their way to the surface and sleeping poorly. Since we've been home, the sleeping has vastly improved, but the teething is still causing trouble.

All in all, my totally objective opinion is that she's just about perfect!

Sylvia is 15 months old!

That's right... Sylvia is 1.25, and she's now over 22 pounds. Her second year seems to be going by even faster than her first!

She's still falling asleep on her own for naps and bedtime. When we put her down, she usually just rolls over, snuggles with one of her "babies" (one of which can be seen in the chair picture), chatters to herself a bit, and goes to sleep. She usually goes to sleep with no fussing, and she usually sleeps through the night (11 hours) and sleeps for 2 full naps (about 1.5 hours each).

She now has her 8 center teeth (4 on top, 4 on bottom). I kind of miss the gap-tooth smile that she had for a while, but of course she still slays me with every smile.

She's still a really good eater... Well, I guess that depends on what one means by "good" eater:

She's not saying too many discernible words (we've picked out "yea", "no", "hi", and "duck"), but she repeats lots of words and sometimes tries to fill in words in books and songs. And she's getting better and better at letting us know what she wants. She points to her high chair when she's hungry, she brings us her bedtime books when she's tired, she points to the door when she wants to go outside. This one means "Mommy, pick me up and put me on this thing!"

She understands more and more, too. She responds to a lot of different questions and instructions. She's even getting better at learning from admonishments. When she does something she's not supposed to, we usually wag our fingers and say "no no no" or "tsk tsk" and explain what she's not supposed to do. When she's in a situation where she's tempted to do something that she's not supposed to, she will often look at the object of temptation and say "no no no" or wag her finger at it, as though she needs the extra help to overcome the impulse. It's pretty darned precious.

She's a real sweetheart. She runs up to us and gives us hugs and kisses, and she's such a little snuggler. The other day, I was laying on the floor playing with her, and she came over and rested her head on mine:

Of course she gives us a hard time sometimes, but she's just generally a very sweet and happy kid:

Sylvia is 14 months old!

Sylvia is another month older! We can't believe how much she is growing up and changing. It's hard to believe that she was barely taking steps a few months ago! She just zooms around now like it was nothing!! And she understands so much. In response to questions, she points at things and says things that sounds eeriely like "dis" and "dat". She knows some of her toys by name and kinda tries to say the names herself.

She now has 7 teeth -- and an 8th looks like it is coming soon! She uses them to eat all sorts of things, and she's getting A LITTLE better about discriminating the difference between things that are okay to put in her mouth and things that are not (but just a little). She's often really good when we ask her to do things like "Come to Mommy" or "Give that to Mommy". She's not so good with "Don't do that" or "Stop" or "That's gross / not food."

AAAANNNND, she is now going down to sleep by herself and sleeping for full naps and sleeping through the night. It's early days yet, so we could still totally mess it up, but it's going really well so far.

We're just having a ball with her!

Sylvia is also now the child of 2 PhDs. We were shocked to discover that our requests are taken no more similarly when we explain our professional qualifications.

Here are some recent pictures: