Vivian: 17 Months Old
Posted By Jill on November 14, 2011
Before a whole month passes without an update, I thought I’d better get moving. I have posted some on my personal blog as things have been a little rough for me lately, but Jeremy’s schedule is finally more “normal,” I’m on the upswing and the household is still functioning! On to the kids…
Since the last post was all about Mac, we’ll start with little Vivian. 17 months old… yikes! On October 17th, she had been in the basement napping in the pack ‘n play, which happens often when she is (shall we say) “distracted” by her brother – sometimes it’s that she’s distracting him, but usually not, but we leave the pack ‘n play set up just in case. I heard her start jabbering around 4:30 but left her for a bit. When Jeremy got home, she got louder, so I started on my way to get her. As I went through the kitchen, she sounded much louder than I expected, and I even said to Jeremy, “If I didn’t know any better, I’d think she got out!” The pack ‘n play is in the back corner of the family room in the basement, and it sounded more like she was out in the room closer to the steps. Well, I got to the top of the steps, and what, or rather, whom did I see? Vivian. The little rascal got out. Our little Houdini was at it again. Jeremy and I went down together, both curious as to how she did it. I told him to put her back in, that she’d probably show us (that’s what happened when she got over the gate in the living room the first time). Sure enough, he put her in, and in just seconds she got her leg up over the side and climbed out. Uh oh! The best we could hope for was that it would take longer for her to get out of her crib…
The next day I got a text from Lisa. She tried putting Vivian in the pack ‘n play, but she climbed out so fast that she had to put her in the crib. And she got out! But this time she must have fallen and either got hurt or scared, because she was crying. Once she settled down, she went down ok in the pack ‘n play and stayed in. She hasn’t tried to get out again since, thank goodness, much like when Mac first got out. We’re hoping we have at least a few more months, until a time when we don’t have to worry so much about what she’ll get into after she climbs out.
Vivian is really starting to communicate, though she still has no words. As I look back on where Mac was at this age, Vivian is right on track. She understands what we are saying and can follow most simple directions, much like Mac did:
- Put your clothes down the chute (“do your chores”)
- Nuk out (takes it out of her mouth and usually puts it back in her crib)
- Go get / Where is your… car, book, ball, shoes, blocks – she’s just starting to do this
- Sit down
- No
- Give it to (Mommy, Daddy, etc.)
- Give me hugs/kisses
She is signing too:
- More
- Please
- Eat
- Milk
- Help
- Up
- Thank You
- All Done
Vivian is also getting better at playing by herself with toys rather than needing our full attention (which is nice on days I really need to get some work done). She does, however, show her extroverted personality often in that she will just come up to whomever is in the room with her and want some contact. Sometimes it’s just to give a kiss, which not many would deny her! And if you sit down on the floor with her, she’ll prefer to sit in your lap to do whatever she’s doing rather than sit next to or in front of you. She also likes to dance, spinning around the floor, and she will interact with some of the shows – “pat, pat, pat” in Little Einsteins, and clap along when characters are clapping.
The only other thing I can think of is that in the last month, Vivian finally no longer uses a bath seat in the tub. I know the one we’ve been using says to “discontinue after child can pull to a stand,” but when we’d try her just in the tub, she seemed to prefer the seat and stayed seated better in it, so we kept using it. Just a couple weeks ago we tried her without it again, and this time she did well!
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