Ryan Cathleen: 15 & 16 Months

Today, Ryan is 16 months old.  Wow, we are quickly closing in on a year and a half.  Didn't she just turn 1?  Time is passing so quickly these days.  The past couple of months Ryan has just continued to grow and has become more fascinated with the world around her.  She is so curious, extremely observant, and quite social to the say the least.  My guess is she is weighing in just over 25lbs and still around 30 inches tall.

She gets in to everything and my only saving grace is that she is constantly talking (to herself) so I can usually catch her when she is up to no good pretty quickly.  She is definitely not the silent, sneaky type.  She also has decided that climbing into and onto things is pretty much the best thing ever.  It was a bit surprising to walk into the living room one day and see her walking across the couch.  Oy vey.

Her vocabulary continues to grow, slowly but surely.  She has added cup, no, yes, quack quack, and moo to her list of recognizable words.  I'm convinced that babies talking has to be the cutest thing ever.  Her first canine popped through this past month and I'm sure the other 3 are soon to follow.  At this point she has 13 teeth.  We made our first trip to the dentist in September.  THAT was a fun time. I can officially cross pediatric dentist off my list of things I'd ever want to do in my life.

She is still sleeping like a champ at night.  I moved her bedtime up to 7pm which didn't seem to change what time she woke up at all.  She was sleeping straight through until at least 7am, that is until Daylight Savings.  Hopefully we'll get back to our 7am wake up here soon.  Her naps are a different story.  In short, they suck.  Big time.  I am trying to transition her to one nap per day instead of two.  However, regardless of one or two naps, she's only napping about 50 minutes total per day.  I'm not sure if this is just a phase but since she has never been a great napper, at this point, I'm thinking it may just be her new normal.

We traveled to California during the last two months, Grampy and Grammy Fairman and my friend Alexa came to visit her in Massachusestts, she had her second Halloween, and other than a runny nose while she was cutting that canine, she's been super healthy.  However, she did start having breath holding spells in late September.  She basically holds her breath involuntarily when she's super upset and then literally passes out.  The first and second times that it happened we were in California, away from Dad.  Those were my scariest mommy moments to date.  But, apparently it's not entirely uncommon and she will likely grow out of it.  It's only happened one other time so I'm hoping it's not going to continue to be a regular occurrence.  Luckily, I don't have to leave her with others very often, however the church nursery workers were THRILLED when I told them that they need to watch out for this.  It's more common in strong-willed children.  That's my Ryan!

She may be strong-willed, but she is also ridiculously sweet and affectionate too.  She regularly gives hugs without being asked to as well as kisses.  She loves a good morning snuggle and to sit in your lap and read books.  Her smile is infectious and her laughter, contagious.  Life with this little girl is busy to say the least, but I can't imagine it without my best buddy.