(no subject)

[rivka]

Alex turned 16 months old this week. This is really a golden time.

She's so charming, happy, funny, cuddly, independent, smart. The incredible restlessness of a couple of months ago - the constant need for entertainment and changing scenery - has settled down. Now she sits on the floor and colors with crayons for long periods of time. She talks to her doggy and her little toy Sesame Street figures. She opens junk mail. She puts her puzzles together and talks about the pieces. She climbs up on the furniture and back down again. She has phone conversations, sometimes on her toy cell phone but more often (and with greater enthusiasm) on ours: "Hi! H'lo! Hi! Phone! [babble babble] Bye!"

She's funny. Saturday at dinner, she wrapped a thin strip of mango around her wrist, grinned at us, and announced, "A watch!" Then she held it up to various incorrect body parts ("Nose!" "Ear!"), laughing and shaking her head to show that she didn't mean it, before popping it in her mouth.

She's more affectionate. When she brings me a book to read, she'll suggest, "Lap." She loves to sit on my lap to color (although that has technical complications), look at books, or watch Blue's Clues. She'll lean in to us and say, "Hug hug," or just throw herself into our arms for a quick cuddle. Toys like doggy are still the most likely to be kissed (closed lips, chin thrust forward, and an emphatic "mmmmmmMMM!"), but sometimes we get kisses as well.

She still just loves to go for walks and play outside. She collects leaves, sticks, and small rocks. She splashes in puddles. She looks up at streetlamps and says, "Tall!" She points at passing cars and announces their color. She wants to investigate every barking dog she hears. And she definitely remembers where dogs have been seen in the past - she knows approximately where to find the bookstore with the amiable collie mix, and the gates that sometimes have dogs behind them.

I've lost count of her vocabulary, but it's well over two hundred words. Her early words were almost all concrete nouns, but now she uses plenty of verbs (hop, jump, walk, drink, sleep, scratch, fly) and adjectives (high, low, tall, hot, cold, loud). She makes adorable errors: she calls umbrellas "rain" and brooms "sweep." She knows just about all the parts of the body and most of the colors (red, green, blue, yellow, purple, pink, black, brown), and she loves to point them out. Two-word phrases are increasingly common: "red truck," "cracker, please," "more milk." She loves to answer questions with "no," regardless of her actual opinion, so we have a lot of conversations like this:

Alex: "Kitty, kitty, kitty!"
Me: "Oh, is there a kitty there?"
Alex: "No."

We had her 15-month well-baby check today, a month late. It was awful - she started crying as soon as we were put in an exam room, and turned purple with hysteria during the exam itself. Her pediatrician and his assistant both agreed that it was just the age, and that pretty much every toddler hates doctors with a passion. Fortunately, this time the exam didn't bring up anything that required further investigation.

Except, possibly, her weight. She didn't gain any weight from 12 to 16 months - she's stayed steady at 21 pounds, which puts her in the 13th percentile for girls her age. Her height, on the other hand, continues to hover right around the 95th percentile. Her doctor wasn't especially alarmed - he pointed out that if she wasn't getting adequate nutrition, she wouldn't be getting taller. But he wants us to make sure to schedule her 18 month visit right at 18 months, so we can continue to monitor her weight. In the meantime, I'm going to try offering more healthy snacks - she's generally been a three meals a day toddler, rather than a grazer, but I think she could probably eat a little more in between meals. (Any suggestions for healthy, high-calorie snacks?)

In general, this is just an amazing time. She went through a hard-to-parent phase a little while back, and I'm sure she'll hit another one soon... but in the meantime, I can hardly contain my overflowing heartful of toddler love.

Comments

[sashajwolf.livejournal.com]

My daughter and my middle son both ate very little as small children (and often still do, at the ages of seven and nine), but both of them are incredibly healthy. I used to worry when I could see my daughter's ribs, but I've come to accept it as normal for her; she's unusually tall for her age, too, and has been practically since birth. At age 3, she weighed 26 lbs; I don't recall what it was at 16 months, but I don't think it can have been much more than 21.

As for snacks, protein is less likely to distort her hunger perception than sugar, and she's a bit young for large quantities of complex carbs. I'd probably try fingers of cheese. Avocado might also be worth a try, though it's messier. I don't recall whether or not you've mentioned a history of allergies, I'm afraid, but if not, you could also try non-peanut nut butter on crackers or white bread. And when I was a kid, one of my favourite snacks was tinned sardines on white toast.

Does Alex tell you when she's hungry? If so, then in your place I'd probably just trust her to regulate her own intake as far as the timings of meals and snacks are concerned, but I'd make sure always to have some high-energy snacks on hand, so that she could always have them if she wanted to. Since she's growing (and in that regard, I've noticed that my kids always tend to either grow or put on weight, but never both at the same time) and has energy for jumping in puddles etc, it seems very unlikely there's anything wrong. If she doesn't tell you when she's hungry, I'd focus on encouraging her to do that by asking her from time to time (but I'd try to avoid any implication that "no" is the wrong answer). I think training kids to respect the link between eating and hunger is one of the most important gifts a parent can give them - there's so much social pressure not to, in both directions ("Oh, have another slice of birthday cake!" "You too can drop a dress size in 10 days!")

[rivka.livejournal.com]

She does let us know that she's hungry - usually by asking for crackers, by which she means graham crackers (slightly sweet, crisp biscuits). I'm thinking that I might try responding to her requests for crackers by offering something a little more substantial - cheese, yogurt, etc.

Avocados are a good idea, although we seem to have a hard time getting good ones here. But there's a nice, nutrient-dense food that's high in the good kinds of fat. I suppose she might like black olives, too - they fit the same set of criteria.

Strong family history of food allergies, unfortunately, so I don't want to introduce any kind of nut butter. I've heard that some people's kids like soy butter - we might try that, I suppose.

We don't ever pressure her to eat or insist that she have "one more bite." The most I'll do is suggest that she try something. I have been trying to follow the maxim that we decide what to offer and when, and she decides what to eat and how much, but it's a little hard to keep steady on that course when I can count her ribs and vertebrae, you know?

[nodakwriter.livejournal.com]

There is also sunbutter (www.sunbutter.com) which is not made from nuts at all, but sunflower seeds. The creators decided to locate their plant in North Dakota because that allowed them to make extra sure there was no nut contamination of the product.

[sashajwolf.livejournal.com]

it's a little hard to keep steady on that course when I can count her ribs and vertebrae, you know?

Yes, I really do :-)

I think the idea of offering her cheese etc. when she asks for crackers is a good one. If you say something like "Would you like some cheese with your crackers?", then she gets both the affirmation of her choices and the encouragement to branch out a little.

[(Anonymous)]

That's about what I was thinking--putting high fat/protein stuff like cheese or meat (you all are meat-eaters, right? If not then soy meat), hummus on crackers, which she already eats and likes, might do the trick. As a kid I would put butter on graham crackers, which is certainly high-calorie.

I was a skinny little thing growing up, and my mom would always put as much scrambled egg and cut up hot dogs into me as she could manage. Although you need to prepare both, they're also on the very low end of the food-prep scale.

[tchemgrrl.livejournal.com]

Whoops, sorry, hadn't signed in. I'm the anonymous person above.