Esther Follow-Up

Life With Baby Esther sped away at breakneck speed last week and has left us welcoming a new BFF, Life With a Toddler #3.

Literally moments after posting about Esther a few weeks ago, after declaring that she "refuses to walk" and "demands to be carried", I found myself clapping and cheering wildly for Esther's first few seconds of unassisted standing. Believe me, at almost 17 months, the whole house was ready to celebrate. We encouraged Esther to share her trick with any and every person to pass through our doors, and sure enough by day 2 of standing, she decided to take a few steps. Now just to be clear, that was about 2 weeks ago, and there is currently no running, jumping, ball-kicking toddler emerging yet...

But, she does decide to walk a few steps every once in a while. Esther's personal philosophy is becoming quite clear in regard to walking: slow and steady wins the race! To date, she enjoys standing for praise and when she forgets that she is doing it. She walks also for praise, and occasionally if she only needs two or three steps between stabilizing objects. Her longest walk so far was about 8 feet, probably 10 steps or so. With the other two girls, I declared them to be walking on the day they took their first steps. For Eva that was on her first birthday, and for Hope it was near the end of 13 months. This time around though... I'm waiting to announce that Esther is a walker (though it would've been 16 months) until she really moves... which I'm hoping is before her second birthday :).

Anyway, the toddlerhood explosion continued all last week. Suddenly I realized that Esther likes to feed herself with a fork and a spoon. I also realized that she easily forgoes the morning nap (if I had been paying attention, I would've realized that she was playing in her crib for most of it anyway). By the end of the week, she was "lovingly" loading a baby doll into her doll stroller and taking all kinds of trips around the house (and NOT on all fours!).

I took her to the doctor last week for a well-baby check, and I was actually surprised by several things. I thought she was a puny runt, but it turns out she is solidly in the 50th percentile. I also thought she was probably a little delayed across the board with development. On the contrary, as I filled out one of those developmental milestone questionnaires,
I was able to circle every skill up to 21 months. Of course, I laughed out loud at the thought of Esther kicking a ball, so I (obviously) didn't circle "running", "walking", or "kicking a ball". Her doctor, who we absolutely adore and love to recommend to others, thought she looked great and chided me for having any concerns about the lack of walking in light of her other normal growth.

Once I stopped to think (and blog) about Esther's words, I started to remember and notice many more than I thought she had. To add to my previous list: (sorry it is double spaced. Blogger and I fight. A lot.)

sock

light

boll (ball)

babo (baby)

up

noh(nose)

eye

guk (yuck, in relation to poopy diapers)

meow

moo

quack

neigh

bah

tickl (tickle)

Brrr

Sno (snow)
col (cold, we DO live in Minnesota)

bana (banana)

chiz (cheese)

poo boo (peekaboo)

Esther has a very special relationship with Eva lately, but that will have to be for another post. For now, I am pleased to introduce our official TODDLER!