Fourteen Months

Another month has gone by in what seemed like the blink of an eye.  Punky is fourteen months old today.

This month she made the transition to only one nap a day; it's been weeks since she taken two.  She initiated the change and has done well with it.  Depending on how early she rises in the morning, that one nap can last anywhere from one to three hours. 

Just this week she decided she needs a bed pillow in her crib for nap time.  She seems to be okay with it during her nap, but I'm not ready to let her have it all night long.  It's bad enough I have to get up several times a night to unravel the blanket turban she makes around her head.  I don't need another possible suffocation risk to worry about now. 

After some more nap time pillow practice, I'll let her have it at night.  It may actually help break her bad habit of rolling all around the crib and banging her head off the rails...as well as wrapping her head in the blanket.  Maybe if she is comfy with her head on the pillow, she'll stay in one place. 

I need to transition her to a bed in the next four months.  We borrowed my sister's crib for Punky and she'll need it back for the new baby come summer.  I've been worrying about the upcoming transition because of how much she moves around in her sleep.  I was envisioning needing multiple bed rails to completely enclose the perimeter and keep her from hitting the floor.  If a pillow helps her learn to stay still while she sleeps, it will take care of my bed concerns.

This month was apparently brought to us by the letter P.  Up, apple, and paper top the list of Punky's expanding vocabulary these days.  And I can't forget cuppa cuppa cuppa...  She also says sock, which sounds more like ock, and hair, which sounds more like air... but we know what she means. 

Her energy is endless.  Who needs to walk when you can run, run, run?  Those little legs go a mile a minute as she darts from room to room.  I am looking forward to spring so she can run around in the yard.  If she gets over her fear of grass that is...

The current count is now six teeth.  The other top center one and the one next to it both broke through in the last few days.  Brushing them has become such a chore lately.  She still loves it and runs right to the bathroom as soon as I even hint at it.  And she still likes the part she does all by herself.  The problem arises when mama needs to make sure her teeth are clean. 

The top ones are new so she hasn't quite figured out how to protect them yet, but she covers the bottom ones with her tongue and it's a fight to get under it.  I feel like I'm brushing her tongue raw just trying to get a swipe at those teeth.  I make the typical faces to get her to bare the pearly whites and she cooperatively copies me...but only for a split second.  Not long enough for me to get the teeth.  I hope this phase passes quickly or she'll have her first cavity before she's even tasted any candy.

Speaking of which, the Easter Bunny is a bit stumped on what to bring her this year.  No candy... she is still too little and far too energized as it is... with no sugar added.  And mama certainly doesn't need chocolate in the house just begging to be eaten.  Last year she got a basket full of baby food.  I think we need something a bit more exciting this year but have no clue what to stuff in there.  I guess the bunny will figure it out eventually.

Her favorite things these days include looking at photo albums over and over and pointing to the people/objects she recognizes.  The ball fascination is still going strong.  Roughhousing on the living room floor with a mound of pillows has become a daily occurrence.  Mama's teaching her the basic skills needed for a good pillow fight, and she loves every minute of it.  She still loves her books, and her bears, and her Wonder Pets, and her baby dolls.  I am itching to put the doll house together that we got for her birthday but I seriously need to start weeding out some of her toys before we open new ones. 

Of course her most favorite thing of all is still that bed time ba-ba.  I know the doc said "off the bottle completely by fifteen months..."  We are almost out of time and I still have no clue how to go about accomplishing it.  All the others disappeared with no problem, but this one she cries for every night.  When the switch flips and she decides she's tired, that's all she wants.  Nothing else appeases her.  I think we're going to end up going cold turkey... which may mean a baby screaming for hours before falling asleep.  It's going to be rough for her, and my heart will ache with every little tear she sheds.

She celebrated her fourteen-month birthday today by learning a new trick: she can get up on the couch... completely unassisted by anyone or anything.  This prompted a sudden re-arrangement of the living room furniture.  I had visions of her going right over the back of the couch and through the front window, so the couch is now securely placed against a solid wall.  

After telling her to get down about a hundred times this afternoon, and her running right back to climb up again after being told no over and over, she also earned her first ever time-out.  This is going to be a long couple of weeks until the newness of this skill wears off and she stops running for it at every opportunity.  Now I just need to keep my eyes glued to her until then and pray for no broken bones when she takes the inevitable tumble from couch to carpet.