Mac at 15 months

MacKenzie,

You turned 15 months earlier this week and you never cease to amaze us with how much you grow and learn each day. I feel like I can hardly keep up with you because you are so curious, observant, and too freaking smart for your own good! I feel truly blessed for each day that I get to help guide you through all of your explorations.

Let's start with feeding and sleeping...
We discovered (or felt) that we were over snacking you, so we have cut down on the snacks a bit in an attempt to get you to eat more at meal time. We will give you snacks, we just try to limit their amount and vary them with lots of fruit or yogurt (rather than cereal, crackers, or goldfish). You seem to eat best in the morning still so I make sure to scramble you an egg with some sausage most mornings to make sure you get a good amount of protein each day. This way I don't have to stress as much about what you eat the rest of the day because you are usually willing to eat veggies (especially peas, broccoli crowns, and green beans) and you love fruit (including, but not limited to, bananas, strawberries, grapes, melon, and pineapple). You still love bread and pasta and will request it (with the appropriate sign and by saying breah, breah) if we have something that looks like bread on our plate. I cannot really blame you, carbs are yummy and delicious to Mommy and Daddy too! We are beginning to work on you using a spoon, but you are usually too excited about meal time for that. I think it will be a good task to keep you busy when Baby Trike comes...I can imagine it will be a little messy, but I think a spoon and a small bowl of yogurt will keep you occupied for a while during a nursing session with the new baby. You have been drinking milk three times a day still, but you don't have to drink it right before bed (it is not a part of your bed time routine) which is good. As far as sleep goes, you usually go down around 8:30 and wake up anywhere between 7:30 and 8:30. You are a great sleeper. Usually after dinner we give you milk, then you play or we read you books, then most nights you get a bath from Daddy, then we read and say prayers as a family, then we put you in your crib with two blankies and you fall right asleep. You have woken up a few times recently with what seems to be a nightmare, but it hasn't become a big issue. You have pretty much dropped your morning nap (sometimes you will doze if we are in the car) and have stretched out your afternoon nap to (usually) being two or more hours.

For play time:
You love to read most of all. We will spend hours with you climbing up and down the couch handing us one book at a time while we read and point out different parts of the books. You love your big sister book, anything with animals and puppies, and the 5 little monkeys book that your Great Aunt LIz bought you for Christmas. You also love the nursery rhyme book, but you get a little distracted in that one. You will "read" along with the 5 little monkeys telling us that the monkeys bumped their heads (point to your head), that they called the doctor (you will say doc-doc), and then you will speak jibberish and shake your hand when we read "no more monkeys jumping on the bed". You can point out stars, the sun, trees, birds, cows, pigs, sheep, lions, puppies (of course), flowers, birds, babies, ball, balloons, and penguins (among others) when asked in your books. You know the sounds that all of those animals plus elephants, cars, and cats make. We are trying to teach you that farmers say "Howdy" but that one might take a bit longer. You like to pretend to feed us with your play food and dishes from your kitchen. And you have started playing with your toy cars (both the big ride in and little matchbox cars) more and more. You are really starting to love playing outdoors and will spend a long time in the backyard just walking around. We know you want to climb more (you love going all the way up the stairs by yourself) and we are are on the lookout for a climber for you to play on. You love bubbles (especially when Mommy shakes the wand up and down) and like when you get to play in water. Your favorite still is to play with all of your stuffed animals, especially the puppies, and it is not uncommon for us to have to pack multiple puppies to take with us. You are walking well and love to put on all sorts of shoes to walk around in. You also still love music and will dance along with the music. Your dancing is starting to become more like real dancing rather than just bobbing your body up and down, lately you have started rocking in a circle too. Kiki recently taught you about marching so we sometimes catch you marching instead of walking and today you learned about kicking the ball so I am sure we will see you kicking things more and more.

For special things this month:
In another blog I talked about doing more MacKenzie mode activities (I want to try for two each month at this point) and I have succeeded for this month! We went to library time (which you tried to escape from) and today we went to toddler time at the skating rink. You didn't skate, but had a blast with all of the push toys, play balls, and simply walking around for almost two hours straight. You tried to climb in the dj booth and the skate rental booth several times, maybe you are looking for a job already?!? As mentioned above we are playing outside more and more when the weather is nice (it has been hit or miss so it is harder to go on consistent walks with you). You spent the night with your PawPaw and Mimi while Mommy and Daddy worked a catering event and another time they took you on your first trip to an actual ice cream store! We also visited all of Daddy's family in College Station over MLK weekend. This past week we went with Kiki and Popi to visit his Daddy...it was funny because although you had never met them or been to their house you walked right in and started exploring as if you had been there a thousand times before.

Vocabulary:
A list of words that you can say: Mama, Dada, doc-doc (doctor), puppy, dzeesus (Jesus), all done, peez (please), pay (play), beah (bear), mah-mlo (marshmallow), bow, pretty (usually in reference to flowers), tar (star), duck
A list of words that you sign: milk, thirsty, bird, plane, fish, help, wait, food/hungry, please, more, all done, play, read, book, change, bath, bear, thank you (sometimes you will do this sign...I think it is a difficult concept), cheese, bread, banana, fan, star, sun, water, sleepy, and you will sign yes, but I am not sure if you understand the word completely
Additional words you recognize/will point to: blanket, pillow, baby (point to mommy's tummy), eyes, ears, nose, mouth, hair, tummy, foot, car, Mama, Dada, Kiki, Popi, Mimi, PawPaw, Auntie J, Auntie Karlin, Henry, Avah, tree

And I am sure there are more, but it is hard to think of so many things that you know.

You are learning more and more each day and I love all that you are, that you do, and that you represent. Know that our love for you grows with each moment. Mommy will post some pictures soon.

Love,
Mommy and Daddy