18 Month Appointment

Height: 33 inches (85%)

Weight: 24 pounds (46%)

Head: 47.5 cm (77%)

Olivia was a little shyer at this appointment and didn't show off quite as much as she had at her 15 month appointment.  However, she is always one to point out bracelets and the color pink so she was sure to tell Dr. Shrouds that he was wearing a blue bracelet and a yellow bracelet (really silly bands) and that he had pink on his shirt.  He was impressed that she knew her colors already and at how well Olivia is putting words together.

During our trip to Arizona, both my mom and grandma were concerned with the way Olivia was walking because her ankles seemed to move inward.  I asked the doctor about this and he assured me there was nothing to worry about; Olivia just has very flat feet which are causing her to walk this way and they should get better by the time she is 6.  The flat feet must explain her clumsiness!

Besides a few shots, the appointment went very well and we were told the next milestones to begin working on are pre-potty training and time-outs for bad behavior. 

A few other things Olivia is doing that I forgot to mention in the previous post:

Olivia now sits in a booster seat at the dinner table with us instead of her high chair.  She loves sitting at the table with everyone and won't use her high chair anymore; however, luckily she'll still use it when we go out to eat.

She can feed herself very well with a spoon or fork even though she still prefers to be spoiled and have me feed her.  Her pouty face only works on weekday mornings when we are in a hurry to leave the house.  She also loves to drink the milk from her cereal bowl when she is done with her cereal and surprisingly doesn't make that big of a mess.

She helps me do the laundry by helping to throw dirty clothes into the laundry basket.  She always helps me push the wet clothes into the dryer.  I transfer them from the washer onto the dryer lid and Olivia pushes the clothes in for me.  Before we started doing this, Olivia would continue to come up and shut the dryer door so that I would have to open it with each handful of laundry I was transferring so this has made transferring the laundry that much easier.

She also has her first nightly chore!!  Olivia now feeds the dogs at night and she LOVES it!  At night she'll say "doggies hungry" and escort either Jared or me to the dog food to help her scoop out a cup full and then she'll bring the cup to fill up the dog's food bowls.  This usually results in a trail of dog food on the way to the bowls but the dogs are more than happy to clean up behind her.