16 Month Update

Cora Landry is...

• "so smiley!"
• "so expressive"
• "so independent" (her teacher)
• "a monster!" (her dad talking)
• A HANDFUL (me!)

I remember saying I could never imagine this calm baby ever being anything but sweet :)  We love our little ball of feelings!  We love how she looks like she's just gotten a cattle prod in the back whenever she sees us.  We love how simple things (seeing her water cup, her blankie, her brother) make her dissolve into smiles and excitement.

We even love her alligator tears.

This has been a month for talking.  She's added new words (ball, outside, book, truck, chicken, night-night, hot, teddy), but mainly she is just spending more time talking.  A lot of her words sound the same, but her facial expressions, pointing, grabbing, and head shaking help clarify.

This month has also erased my worry that maybe because Jack loves to read so much she might not.  Reading has climbed the list of her favorite things.  It now bounces above nursing at times (i.e. she cuts night-time nursing sessions short because she wants to read another book), but still falls below her blankie, which is her all time favorite thing.

A favorite Jack-Cora activity is to get a fire book (which we have about 40 of) and "read" it together looking for "DOG-gies."  It's very convenient that their interests align ( fire books have fire dogs on nearly every page.)  Cora will be a fire dog for Halloween and Jack will be a fireman (for the third year if you are counting).

Cora no longer seems interested in coming home with me when I arrive at school!  She lights up when she sees me but gets mad if I try to pick her up. She's almost always at the sand table and is a sandy mess to take home.  I felt a slight twinge the first time she pitched a fit to come home, but I'm really happy she is loving school so much. 



We are about to drop the second nap all together.  We were at two naps half the time, but Cora has started sleeping later and it started getting hard to get her down twice.  For now, I'm keeping the Tuesday morning nap as that helps her catch up on sleep between her school days and it gives me a little time to do things like write this blog since Jack is at school on Tuesdays.

She's still nursing a solid four times a day.  She typically wakes between 5 and 6 and will now nurse and go back to sleep until we wake her up between 7-7:30.  Nursing three times would fit better into our daily schedule but I'm not quite ready to drop the fourth feeding.  With four nursings, I don't think twice about not offering cow's milk, but I think when we drop to three, I will, so we're going to hang onto it a little longer.  I really love nursing a toddler because it's such a magical calming aid.  Cora can be over-tired or upset and will immediately relax when she nurses and is fully restored to a happy child when she's done.

She's busy, cute, full of energy, opinionated, smart, a stinker, and such a beautiful little girl.  We are a lucky family to have her!