14 Months

This week The Face is 14 months old. I was recently trying to think of all the nicknames we have for Lexi, which include Face, Bear, Bear-o, Lexibear, The Bron and Hey!DontTouchThat! I think the last one is her favorite because she elicits it so often.  Ah, the life of a mommy to a budding toddler.  So here’s what is on the must-do list for any 1 1/6 year old:

Open and close all the things!  This includes closets, doors, lids, toilets and boxes.  Suffice to say we have reluctantly upped our baby-proofing game to include a toilet lock (Ugh PITA!) and a lock on the pantry door.  She can’t open all the doors yet because she isn’t tall enough, but for some reason the handles on the pantry and laundry room doors are lower so she can get in as well as close the door on us.  I didn’t mind so much with the laundry room as that just keeps her entertained, but after she broke a bottle of vinegar and then a bottle of soy sauce the pantry had to be locked.  I was also holding off on doing the toilet but because it is technically a drowning hazard, and literally gross, it had to be locked.

Yup, that's what my face looked like when I saw you splashing in the toilet, Lexi.

Lexi is super into twisting caps off water bottles, which is why our sheets had to be stripped this week from spillage.  Hooray!  I’m impressed, but also not thrilled with this development.  Besides the fact that the tops are choking hazards (and the spill factor), Lexi is really big on throwing her head back and “drinking” from the bottles, so if they aren’t empty she gets a bit of a surprise.  I, too, am surprised when this fails to be a deterrent.

The walking has progressed to running, which is the cutest.  Climbing is still a favorite activity, and so is falling, I guess.  It’s nice to go to the park now and watch Lexi climb on the equipment, and kinda sad when she sits next to the “big kids” (ages 3-5) but can’t really play with them.  One day, Bear-o.  As you can see above, Lexi also loves to climb into her toy bin and goof around.  I can’t complain, at least that activity involves actual baby toys.

She is getting a lot better at mimicking, and had perfected cheers-ing other people’s drinks.  When we “meow” she’ll just do a high-pitched screechy sound…close but no cigar, kid.  And I think she was trying to sing in the car, which was hilarious cause it was just yelling.  So tone-deaf.

I’m slowly but surely trying to wean Lexi off the bottle.  So far I’m just replacing one bottle of milk a day with a sippy cup, and although this doesn’t seem to upset her, she barely drinks any milk from the sippy.  I know she likes the cups though because she will carry one full of water around all day and has the gigantic diapers to prove it.  I’m not in a huge rush to make this happen, but maybe we’ll try getting rid of another bottle in the next couple of weeks.

In other feeding news, Lexi’s use of a spoon is coming along super well.  I’ve been having her try to use one a little bit every day, but mostly putting the food on it and then having her direct it to her mouth.  Then last week Katay and Marcus came over for dinner and we had guacamole out.  Lexi loves playing with her spoons so she was carrying one around when she walked up to the guac, stuck the spoon in, scooped out a good amount and shoved it into her mouth.  Success!  Luckily our company wasn’t grossed out, and since then I’ve given Lexi a lot more responsibility in the feeding department.

Doing things myself sucks.

So that’s Bear-o these days.  Getting so big, next thing you know she’ll be doing guest posts!  It’s not for lack of trying…