Every Good and Perfect Gift: Lucy 15 Months- Stats and Updates

Since I last posted an update on Lucy we've had a couple tumultuous weeks! Unfortunately Lucy had been sick for about a month and a half so we are just now entering a state of "normal" in our house. She went from having a cold/flu for almost two weeks to picking up another cold/flu, and somewhere in between got two ear infections! Poor girl! She spent most of those days with a paci, sleeping whenever she wanted, watching TV (something she normally isn't allowed to do) and hanging out in mom's arms. Anything to make my little girl feel better!

So as far as normal, I still don't have a good grasp on what a normal schedule looks like for us. With the weirdness of her schedule before the sickness, then the sickness, then two vacations after the sickness I have just been taking each day as they come and trying to watch Lucy's cues as much as possible. Some days she takes two naps, most days she takes one. Some days she seems cranky but doesn't want to sleep so she goes down for some much needed quiet time in her crib. Some days she sleeps a normal 7:30pm-7:30am schedule at night, some days we lay her down at 7:30 and she plays until 8:30 or 9. Hopefully within the next couple weeks (now that we are down with traveling for a bit) we'll get a better routine going.

Fortunately though much of the crankiness is gone and Lucy has been much less clingy to me. Although she still loves a decent amount of mommy time, it has been fun to see how she now also prefers her grandparents, Jadyn, Jordyn and Ben and will even sometimes choose them over me (something I'm very happy about!)

We have been working on a couple things I spoke with the doctor about in the past couple days. One problem I was having was Lucy's desire to snack all throughout the day and eat half her meal in the highchair and half her meals in my lap. Instead of this routine, I am now trying to have set meal times (difficult when her sleep is all over the map though) and only let her eat in her highchair or booster (difficult when we are on vacation though). So far we've had some success with this, but it has been taking a lot of reinforcement!

The other thing we've been working on is discipline. This is a whole new ball park for me and something I have been asking many of my other mommy friends about and reading lots of books about! It felt like such an abrupt change moving from baby-hood to toddler-hood, I definitely was not prepared. Fortunately, Lucy does not get into trouble a lot, and typically if she does do something bad I know it's time for a nap or bed time. My doctor suggested, and I agree, that at Lucy's age time outs can be somewhat difficult so if she does do something bad (i.e. hitting mommy out of anger) I get on her eye-level, tell her "NO NO NO" and then walk away from her for 30 seconds. So for right now, we are trying that - so far I've only had to do it once or twice, like I said Lucy just doesn't seem to be getting into too much trouble yet.

Two funny things that happened this past week that I want to remember are when Lucy sneezed and as Ben was reaching for a tissue, Lucy grabbed my shirt and wiped her nose with it (thanks luc! I wasn't trying to keep that clean or anything!) and when I was sitting in the family room I watched Lucy climb up the stairs. I thought it was funny she would leave a room that I was in (she usually likes to be close by) so I let her do her thing. A couple second later she came back down the stairs, and was running over to me with a paci in her mouth looking as happy as could be. Apparently she had snuck upstairs on a paci hunt and was proud of herself for finding one!

Other than that, Lucy's personality continues to blossom and I find myself laughing with her throughout the day. She is so adventurous and continues to love being outdoors. A few shots from the past couple weeks...

On our way home from a splash park day and visit to Mimi's