Lucy is, no, was 18 months

Oh behind once again....Lucy turned 18 months on Sept. 7th...almost a month ago but that's okay.  I wanted to get her stats before I posted and I was late in scheduling her check up, and then last week happened....
Anyway, Lucy is 22 lbs 15 oz but that is with a cloth diaper on (I think it's weird our ped. office doesn't weigh them naked anymore) so I'm guessing she's more around 22 lbs.  She is also 31 inches tall.  I was not expecting that quite honestly; she still seems so little!  Comparatively this puts her around the 20th percentile on both charts.

Developmentally, I'm pretty sure Lucy is on track with her gross/fine motor skills.  She can walk and run, hold a crayon (no toddler crayons over here!), feed herself, use a spoon, etc.  She tries to jump but can't figure out how to get her feet to leave the ground so mostly she just bounces.  Oh and Lucy loves to dance and has mastered several dance moves like stomping, swaying, turning in circles, etc.

As far as her language goes....okay I guess I need to just insert a warning here that extreme bragging is coming.
So I think an average 18 month old has around a dozen words (at least according to babycenter.com).  Lucy has more like 6 dozen words.  That is not an exaggeration!  She repeats everything we say (yes even the f-bomb which I accidentally let loose when we were lost in Milwaukee).  And not only does she repeat it, she will store it in her brain to practice later.  I've been telling everyone lately about when Lucy and I were at the store and she all of a sudden started saying "I said no!  I said no!"  Ummmm gee I wonder who she heard that from?? 
And not only does this girl have a large vocabulary already but she is quite adept at stringing those words together.  Lucy speaks mostly in 2-3 word phrases and quite often throws 4-5 word sentences in there.  Those usually tend to be ones she has heard us or her sister say though.  I don't think she has come up with her own 4-5 word sentence yet, but I gave up trying to track all the things she says long ago.
And if I could just brag a bit more....Lucy knows most, if not all, her uppercase and lowercase letters.  I didn't explicitly teach them.  She just picked them up from watching Superwhy, Sesame Street, and reading alphabet books with us.  Lucy also can identify 0-10 and she can count up to 13 (and then jumps to 16; I don't know where 14 and 15 went).
And as far as colors go....well Lucy knows all the color names.  Sometimes she'll still mix them up.  It's so weird; one day she'll identify all of them perfectly and the next day she gets them confused.  That is happening less but sometimes I do still have to remind her that the frog is green, not red.  I was starting to get worried and then I was like "duh, she's only 18 months...I'll worry if she doesn't know them solid by 3 years."

Okay end of bragging.....

Health-wise Lucy is okay.  Still allergic to peanuts (and has now been exposed to them 3 times accidentally) and her eczema is really bad.  It was getting better over the summer but the past 2 weeks she has been covered in splotches and her skins is sooo dry.  We've gone back to coating her with straight vasoline several times a day.  We are out of her prescription cream so that could be part of the problem.  Our ped. suggested eliminating dairy since that also came up as an allergen for her but honestly I haven't seen an improvement, if anything she has gotten worse since we took it out of her diet.
And Lucy finally has more than 6 teeth!  Just in the past few days 2 more have broken through.  Her ped. also said her gums were swollen so maybe some molars will finally be on the way.  I know that will make eating so much easier for her. 

I wish I had some nice pictures to share but I've been so busy taking pictures for other people lately I haven't had hardly any time (or motivation) to take pictures of the girls.  I think I'm going to have to take a step back from doing sessions for other people for a bit but that might be a post for another time.

One Week Down

I did it!  One week: no chips.  I even managed to do that with half a bag of tortilla chips sitting in our cabinet (it's still there).  I'm going to keep going with this streak.  Now I am not going to pretend I made wonderful food choices all week; I did not.  But at least I didn't eat any chips! 

Hi I'm Joanna and I'm a Chip-a-holic

It's true...chips are a huge downfall for me when it comes to dieting maintaining a healthy lifestyle.  I am one of those persons who could sit on the couch and easily polish off a half a bag in one sitting.  Obviously this does not bode well when I'm still trying to shed 20 lbs of baby weight (and yes that "baby" is turning three in November).  I started thinking today about those "small steps to weight loss" that many articles have talked about: things like cutting out pop (I rarely drink pop anyway), drink more water (um that's pretty much all I drink), work out (check), etc.  The problem is I already do all those things and have been doing them for around 5-6 years now so those won't help me lose weight.  So what other change could I make?  Cut out chips.  Completely.  I won't even eat the baked chips or other supposed "healthier" chips.  I'm going cold turkey (God I can feel the withdrawal coming already).  I'm going to start with a small goal: go one week.  One week, no chips.  If I do it, then I'll try and go another week.  I'd like to see how long I can keep this going.  My hope is that I'll go SO long without them that I'll lose my taste for them.  Oh sorry, I just fell out of my chair laughing.  But seriously, I know that can happen...I'm just not sure I'll ever go long enough to lose my taste for them (they're SO good!).  Okay blog readers (all 11 of you), help me out.  You need to hold me accountable.  I will check back in next Sun.  One week.  No chips. 

Another Trip to the ER

Wednesday morning began like any other morning.  I got up and ran as usual.  Walker got the girls dressed and fed as I showered.  I was putting on make up Actually, I was about to put on make up but my contact was bothering me so I was cleaning it when I heard a thump and a loud wail.  I knew Taylor had done something but figured it wasn't a big deal until I heard Walker yelling, "there's blood!"  So I go running out into the kitchen to find Taylor sitting on the edge of the sink while Walker was pressing a paper towel to her forehead.  I grabbed an old bath towel for him to use since the paper towel was already saturated.  Taylor was crying and was not at all happy with us trying to clean the blood from her face.  Walker moved the towel away from her head and I got a good look at the wound: about an inch long cut slice (I think that's a much more accurate word) on her forehead that looked pretty deep.  I actually got a little sick to my stomach looking at it so I turned away (FYI: I don't do well with open wounds).  How did she do this?  Well we have one of those rolly chairs for our desk and Taylor loves to stand on it and lean against the desk.  We also have a drawer on the bottom of the desk that does not like to close all the way.  Put them together and what do you get?  The chair rolls from under Taylor's feet and she catches the drawer face first.  We decided Taylor needed to go to the ER so Walker called in to work and I finished getting ready.  Lucy was quite perplexed by all the chaos.  We got the bleeding to slow down enough to put a couple of bandaids on Taylor's head so she wouldn't bleed all over her carseat.  I also took her shirt off and gave her one of her many "loveys" to hold.  Walker and Taylor went to Provena, while Lucy and I headed off to work. 
At the ER Taylor quickly started acting like herself: running around and climbing everything.  She seriously does not learn.  Luckily the doctor said since it was a clean, straight cut, stitches weren't necessary.  The cut was repaired with Dermabond (glue) and Walker was given the instructions to keep Taylor's head out of direct sunlight for at least 3 months (to minimize scarring).  No concussion or other head injuries...thank goodness!
I have to admit, I wasn't completely freaked out by it.  Call it mommy gut or whatever, but I knew Taylor was going to be just fine.  I think a part of me is becoming a little too used to her bumps and bruises but also, me panicking and driving myself crazy with worry isn't going to help these situations.  I have a feeling we will have many more to come.  Oh and the rolly chair is gone: today I brought home my wood desk chair I had at school that does NOT have wheels.

All "glued" up and ready to go

Nothing a little donut can't make better