14 Months with Ellie

We were hit with a blizzard yesterday (got over 2 feet of snow), here is a picture of Ellie all dressed up and playing in the snow!

Development

Ellie started walking last month and now she never crawls anymore.  It is a little sad because she had the cutest little "scoot".  She is getting quite good at walking but I still need to follow her around most of the time because i am nervous she might fall into something (or Winnie will knock her over!).  

I have noticed a big uptick in fussiness and wanting to be held this past month, I am not sure what the cause is but it might have something to do with separation anxiety, even Brian has noticed she has gotten very "mommy needy" recently.  I thought she would prefer to be on her own exploring now that she can walk, but she wants to be held all the time unless I am sitting down on the floor with her.  

She is completely into books and gets very demanding when she wants you to read her a story.  She will go over to the books shelf and select a book (after pulling several off and discarding them) and then bring it over to me and whine and pull at my leg until I read it to her about 10 times.  She loves hearing the story over and over again.  

She is getting really good at understanding us.  I can ask her to point to certain things in the books (mostly animals) and she can tell me where certain ones are (pig, cow, frog, puppy, etc) she even can make certain animal noises although they all sound the same except for the cow.  She is starting to learn the word no and I am sure that will be her favorite thing to say in a few weeks.  She says dada a lot but I am still not sure if she knows it means Brian.  She hasn't quite gotten mama yet.  

I love how she understands when we say things like "ok Ellie time to put your boots on" and she will come over and sit down so we can put them on. 

Feeding

I always feel like she isn't eating/drinking enough, but at her 12 month appointment she went up to the 25th percentile in weight so I know she is getting enough in (she was born at under 1st percentile so this is major)!  I guess I have to remember that she has a tiny belly so her meals are much smaller than mine.  

I am down to 1-2 nursing sessions per day.  I still nurse her right before bed and I try not to nurse her in the morning/in the middle of the night, but sometimes that doesn't always work out since she has recently started to pull on my shirt and whine/cry when she wants to nurse. 

Other Stuff

We are working on an addition to our house and frequently have to go visit show rooms to pick out door knobs, hardware, lighting fixtures, and most of the time we bring Ellie with us which is not an easy task!  She does not want to sit in her stroller for an hour while we pick things out so usually we end up holding her hand while she walks around the store and we try to prevent her from damaging things or herself.  We plan to start the renovations in the spring so that should be very interesting since we have to move out of our house for a few months!

I will follow up on what is going on with the pregnancy in a different post!