esther at 14 months

We realized recently that we hadn't really mentioned much about Esther's recent milestones and rapidly developing personality. We have decided that turning 14 months old is as good a reason as ever to update you!

PERSONALITY
Esther has absolutely blossomed in the last 1 to 2 months or so. She has really gone from being a baby to a little being who understands directions, can communicate with the words she has ("no" and "more" being favorites ), points and says "there" when asked to point things out, says yes and no about things she likes and dislikes, gives hugs and blows kisses, gets excited when her daddy gets home from work and excitedly goes to him to say hello, the list goes on. It's clear though that she'll be a force to be reckoned with in months and years to come...

FAVORITE THINGS
She loves milk, lions and making roaring sounds (she sleeps with a lion and we can often times hear her in her crib roaring away undoubtedly hugging her furry little friend), sucking on her 2 fingers, the scooter aunt stephanie got her, bath time, biting people (and then smiling like she has done something naughtily), climbing on anything precarious and death defying, our neighbors (sometimes more than us we think), and of course, her big sister Dottie!!

COMMUNICATION
She is still quite the chatterbox. She wakes up chatting to herself and then chats to others all day long. Her list of words is getting longer by the day. Here are a handful of her favorites: mama, no, dada, no, hi, bye bye, no no no, roar, baby, there, no, bottle, dot, no, ball, dog, balloon (butchered of course), and even managed to squeak out a full sentence ( Hi Dada ) recently. She shakes her head like crazy when she knows she doesn't want something and nods her head in favor when she does. Our neighbor has even taught her a bit of sign language which she picked up right away.

PHYSICAL
Esther is still scooting on her bum all over the place and just added the crawl about a month ago at 13 months. She prefers standing to get places but will also turn almost any somewhat mobile object into an impromptu walker ( stools, doll houses, etc) She can now stand for about 6 seconds without assistance which just happened this past week. We will see on walking..it will be a bit yet. We have been told by many people who's children chose to scoot that walking was delayed until about 15 or 16 months.

SIZE
We haven't been to the doctor with her since her 1 year appointment so we don't really know how much she weighs but she is definitely still a bit of a pip-squeak. She is still very comfortable in her 6-12 month clothes and can't be more than 19 pounds or so. She is just taking her sweet time to get into all of those cute 12-18 month hand me down's from Dottie!

FOOD
Esther still isn't that into many foods (but loves milk!). She does like broccoli. Go figure. (Learning from her buddy Malcolm that if you are picky about what you eat, at least make it healthy!)

SLEEP
Bedtime is around7:30 every night...assuming her parents are on top of things, and will generally sleep until 7:30 the next morning. She typically sleeps through the night with the occasional wake up here and there because of teeth, etc. In the past 2 weeks or so, she has actually sleeping in until more like 8:00 or 8:30 but we are sure it won't last. She switched to 1 nap a day right around 13 months and it is usually anywhere from 1 1/2 to 3 hours.

NICKNAMES
Dottie has started calling Esther, "Estie" for some reason. We had always planned on using Essie as a nickname if there ever was one but we will see... I am is still calling her "pants" with some other descriptive word before it like "fancy pants" or "fussy pants" or "crazy pants".

TEETH
2 on the bottom, 1 on the top (she has been waiting for at least a month and a half for the other one..it's just starting to poke through) We're certain the dentist will be a challenge, as she was far more horrified with her sisters trip to the dentist than Dottie was.

IN SUMMARY: