Eleanor at 15 Months

As of this morning, Eleanor now weighs 19 lbs, has a head circumference of 17 3/4" and is 29.5" tall.

She is understanding more than ever these days. I can give her simple directions or tell her things like, "go get the ___" or "go upstairs and get Will," and she will do it! She loves to read and her favorite place is to sit in my lap, flipping the pages of a book. In fact, sitting on laps is something of a specialty with her. She has a sixth sense for whenever some adult in the house sits down. The moment that happens, her little radar goes off and she will crawl or walk right over, climb up onto the couch, and plop herself right into your lap, quite contentedly. If you happen to be sitting on the floor, the process is much the same but with less climbing. She just makes herself right at home. Will also likes to sit in my lap so there have been a few conflicts lately where I am reading a story to the kids and they both feel entitled to the coveted, prime, center lap position. I then have to remind them that when they are both trying to sit on my lap, they each get a leg, as they won't both fit in the center. That generally does not go over well.

She is a fairly good listener so far. If I tell her "no" she more or less stops what she is doing. She might complain a little, but she does stop. However that is only when I am standing there next to her. As soon as my back it turned, all bets are off. Her favorite thing to do lately is to play in the toilet. She has recently learned to open a closed lid, so before we could leave the bathroom door open, as long as we closed the lid, but now all bathroom doors must be shut. Its such a pain to catch her in there because it means an immediate outfit change and a sink bath. There were a few days before I figured out that just closing the toilet lid was not enough, where she got into the water two or three times. And so she got two or three new outfits and baths. She loved that! A close second to playing in toilet water is unrolling the toilet paper roll. I just love walking into a bathroom to see an entire roll of fresh toilet paper, in a giant mound on the floor. I so relish spending upwards of 20 minutes carefully rewinding said roll so that it can be easily used. Babies! Its still better than the time that Will poured a gallon of olive oil all over the floor though!

She is still very attached to her wubanub pacifiers and I haven't had the motivation to try and take them away from her yet. In the mean time, my way of limiting their use is to only allow her to have them at bedtime. So I keep them in her crib. Lately she has figured out that if she goes upstairs, opens the door to her room, goes over to her crib and reaches her arm through the slats, she can pull the pacifiers out of her crib. So I will be cooking in the kitchen or something and I see her casually walking by with the pacifier in her mouth when she knows she's not supposed to have it downstairs. She is such a stinker. Will has become my unsolicited enforcer and if he sees her with it in her mouth downstairs, will take it away and say, "no no baby!" and throw it back into her crib!

She has started having these mini melt downs, any time she doesn't get her way. Any time I either when I tell her 'no' to something, or if she is physically unable to do something, she will dramatically throw herself prostrate on the ground, face down, and let out a few shrieks of agony. Then she promptly gets up and carries on as though nothing out of the ordinary has taken place. Its actually fairly amusing right now. I'm sure as she gets older and her tantrums get more violent and frequent however, I will find it far less amusing! 

She is now at the age where if she sees Will get something that she wants, she will whine and make a fuss until she gets it too. One of Wills favorite things to drink is raspberry iced tea, and if she sees me handing him a cup of that, she will grab onto my leg and whine until I hand her a cup too. So I am automatically making or handing out a lot of duplicate items lately. Fair is fair!

Nora's favorite thing to do is throw food onto the floor when shes done, then as soon as I get her out of her high chair, she happily scavenges it right off the floor again! She finishes about 85-100% of every meal I give her though, so the scraps on the ground are just a top off I guess. By this time Will's eating had drastically slowed down so the fact that she still eats so well is a little surprising. We have taken a MUCH lower key, lower pressure approach to food with her compared to Will at that age though, so part of me wonders if that has to do with it. Most meals are STILL a battle with Will these days unfortunately. I do not want to make that mistake with Nora!

She is now walking all the time and improving daily on balance and speed, including navigating things like steps, and small changes in elevation from uneven flooring, while on her feet.You can tell that she is so happy and proud of herself. She gets this cute little proud smile on her face, every time she is able to cross a room without falling. Sometimes she even claps for herself. Its pretty cute.

Breastfeeding is still going extremely well. We have finally reached this point where its easy and comfortable to nurse. There are no issues like weight gain or choking and its just become a part of our routine. When I first started breastfeeding, I had always hoped that it would be this easy and enjoyable. Now after a total combined time period of 26 months (between Will and Nora), it finally is! I am still having to nurse her before and after every nap and bedtime, but I don't mind that at all really. She has been napping only once a day for about 4 months now so it really isn't that bad to do it 4 times a day (though she will sometimes add in a 5th between nap and dinner).


She is such an easy child. She just goes about the day contentedly and goes with the flow. As long as I am always in her sight, she is one happy little camper. Shes got such a great sense of humor and I enjoy being silly with her on a regular basis. She is starting to appreciate music now so I have been singing to her more, which she seems to like. Nora sure is a great kid and I so enjoy her presence around here!