21 months

Actual age: 21 months

Adjusted age: 18 months

Weight: 24 lb 4 oz (32%)

Height: By my measurements - 31.5 (18%)

Diaper size: 4

Clothing size: 18 and 24 months

Medications/medical concerns: None.

Sleep: She goes to sleep anywhere between 8 and 9 and sleeps until 8 or 8:30 in the morning. She naps from about 1 to 2:30 or 3. Lately she has been needing less sleep. As much as I hate to say it, Cameron is exhausting and I need her nap time and bedtime for some breaks! She has been difficult to get to go down for a nap and difficult to go to bed at bedtime. She seems actually in a limbo type stage where she kind of doesn't need a nap but she's too tired without it. If she doesn't nap she goes down for bed just fine. But if she does nap (and it now takes her almost an hour to fall asleep for her nap), then she sometimes won't go to sleep until way late. With her wake and bedtimes there just aren't really enough hours for there be enough wake time between morning and naptime, and between naptime and bedtime. We'll see how that all plays out. I've been pushing her bedtime back somewhat and that seems to help.

Eating: Cameron is eating well. She likes her veggie pouches still, and eats other veggies but is fickle for sure. Eats all kinds of fruit as usual. Loves meat, loves sandwiches, and loves mac and cheese.

Developmental milestones: Again, like last month she is making huge strides in communication. I can pretty much teach her any word at this point if I work at it. It's just a matter of giving her the exposure to the words. She has words for all kinds of things now and picks up lots of new words every day. Today we taught her a couple new words in a matter of minutes that she continued to repeat all day without prompting. Basically if I sit down and show her something and repeat the word enough, she will repeat it and start to use it. Obviously complex words take longer, like elephant or giraffe, and words like mama or papa are very quick. She is also expanding the way she uses words. For example, all done used to mean done with dinner. Now she says it when we are done with a book, when her milk/juice is all gone, etc.

Her fine and gross motor is also becoming very much refined. She is doing things like taking off and putting back on water bottle lids. They are pretty tiny and it takes a lot of focus and dexterity to do that. She can also open lotion caps, open up sunglasses, open and close drawers using handles, open and close chapsticks, and she can use utensils pretty well at this point. This month has really been all about her learning that she can open and close things if she works at it. It used to be that she would whine for me to open something and she has really focused on doing those things herself. She has really been working hard on opening and closing buckles but that is definitely too advanced for her at this moment. Her gross motor is also progressing quite a bit, she is stepping over things much more gracefully, she can get on and off of every single piece of furniture in the house (beds, couches, chairs), she squats and plays with things on the ground for long periods of time, she can crawl without her knees on the ground using just her hands and feet to get under something, and I have seen her get into a sitting position from her back by pushing up with her hands a few times.

Cameron is in full blown imitation mode. She imitates every. single. thing. that Josh and I do. She "helps" me with the laundry and grabs clothing out of the basket, shakes it out like I do, throws it on the floor (hasn't gotten the hang of actually folding lol) and picks out another article of clothing. She loves to imitate all kinds of noises too. She will imitate us laughing even though she thinks nothing is funny and isn't actually laughing. She just likes to pretend she is laughing too. She also takes tissues, holds them up to their face, and then blows raspberries with her mouth to imitate Josh blowing his nose. She pretends to talk on the phone, pretends to type on the computer, and does countless other imitations. Now I know why children tend to be so much like their parents. Monkey see, monkey do.

Cognitive is hard to pinpoint because it is not so obvious like gross motor or language. But every month I see huge differences in Cameron's understanding of the world. I don't really know how else to explain it. She just "gets" things more and more. One specific example I can give though is puzzles. Before when she did puzzles it was trial and error. She would try to fit the correct piece into all the openings until she got it right. Now she will actually look at the piece in hand, and then find the matching spot on the board (I'm talking about the board puzzles where there is a picture of a dog on the puzzle piece as well as the opening). That is a definite advancement in cognition.

Teeth: 12 at the moment. 8 front teeth and 4 one year molars are completely in. Her canines are coming in at the moment. Once those are done we will only have the 2 year molars! I will be really glad to be done with that.

Best moment this month: Josh and I took Cameron swimming at the local pool yesterday! She had a great time. At first it was a bit chilly for her but once she got used to the water she loved it. She would "jump" in when I put her on the side (more just walk off the edge into my arms). She loved walking around in the shallow areas and loved seeing all the other babies. I am excited to go more with her as the summer rolls on.

I am going to start putting her percentiles for height and weight in on this monthly update. I wish I had been doing that the whole time. She is climbing the charts which is really exciting! She is growing faster than a toddler typically does. It's very interesting to me given her prematurity.