Eleanor at 17 Months

As of this morning, Eleanor now weighs 20 lbs, has a head circumference of 18" and is 31" tall.


We call her 'the creeper' because she is the quietest little kid. She still isn't talking at all and doesn't really make any sounds a lot of the time. Plus shes so independent. She just roams around the house, doing whatever she likes to do (play with toys or check things out), and she does it silently. Its very often the case that you will be sitting there, in the middle of some project or activity, and she silently sneaks up on you. Shes such a funny little thing. The only regular sound she does make, is something I like to call 'the dinosaur yell.' Basically any time she wants your attention, or is asking for something, or wants to make herself heard for any reason, she lets out this guttural grunt and uses her hands to motion to whatever it is she wants. She does this at least 50 times a day, but probably more. Its amazing her little throat isn't completely raw by the end of the day! Its working for her though. Its very rare that I can't figure out exactly what she wants and deliver it promptly. Its no wonder she isn't talking yet; she doesn't have to! 

Nora is my silent little mouse with one exception however. When I put her to bed at night, I SWEAR she says something that sounds remarkably like, 'night night' (which is what I always tell her). She mimics me in other ways, all the time now. She frequently mimics hand motions in particular. Recently I was telling her to get down off the table she was climbing on, and I wagged my finger, telling her it wasn't safe. She looked at me and quietly wagged her little finger back at me. Shes done it several other times since then too. Little stinker!! She also uses her finger to point at everything. And she does it very dramatically. Your eyes are naturally drawn to whatever it is she is pointing at and then you get to either fetch her something, or remark about some curiosity she is fascinated by. Finally, her other favorite hand motion is 'bye bye.' And she frequently waves to us whenever we are leaving the room or coming back in. Its very cute. 



Nora loves to wait until I am in the bathroom, and then she climbs up into and sits in my or Michael's lap, while we are sitting on the pot. That makes things difficult! She will also close the door behind her when she does this. Clearly she is very concerned with privacy!

 Her absolute favorite hang out spot though, is our master shower. She would spend the whole day in there if she could. If ever she is missing and I go looking for her, sure enough, 9 times out of 10, she is in that shower. She dances and spins around in there. Most of the time its fine if shes in there, as Michael showers the night before, and its dry by morning, but every now and again I will shower a little later in the morning, and she will go in there and get absolutely soaked. That is great fun! 

She loves to dance and dances frequently. Her favorite song is the theme song to the cartoon "Thomas and Friends" (Will's favorite show). When that show comes on, she will get the biggest smile on her face, and start bobbing and swaying to the music. Walking backwards is another specialty of hers lately. She does it with a sneaky little smile on her face, like shes getting away with a great caper. She also likes to spin in a circle a lot and inevitably, whenever she starts, Will joins her, and the two of them giggle like mad as they each try to spin as much as they can until they fall over from dizziness. Its so fun to watch them play! They both love when I play chase with them and we all run around the house, screaming and giggling as we try to catch each other. 

She is a pretty good listener and will follow multi step instructions frequently. But more and more she is starting to rebel against doing things she doesn't want to do, or is told not to do (like getting into Michael's  desk drawer to get his LED flashlight). Her new thing is to run away when she has something she is not supposed to have and you try to take it from her, whereas before she would hand it to you if you asked her to. She has also started doing this slow motion tantrum thing constantly, and its hilarious. She clearly doesn't want to get hurt, so she carefully lowers her bottom half to the ground and then throws her top half prostrate on the ground, in utter despair, while whining or crying.  Luckily she tends to get over these slights quickly enough! I didn't even have to put a gate up around our Christmas tree because Will acted as the enforcer. And she listened better to him than she does to me! He would tell her, "no no baby! We don't play with the ornaments!" and she would cry for like 3 seconds and then walk away! I was all, "what the?!" I need to recruit him to parent her more!

Amazingly, she is STILL an excellent little eater (by this time Will had become so picky he hardly ate anything. Something that hasn't changed to this day). She clears her plate at most meals and I suppose it shows in her steady growth. She is cautious about some foods but (with a little prodding) tries just about anything once. She goes through phases with some foods where she loves them one day, and wont touch them the next (yogurt is a good example of this), but for the most part she eats everything I set in front of her. Recently I was looking into her mouth during a tooth brushing and I discovered that she now has all of her molars and canine teeth, which makes 16 teeth in all! Hopefully that will expand the textures and types of food she can easily eat. Nuts in particular are something she REALLY wants to eat, but just can't without molars. Soon that will be a thing of the past! 

My wish for a girly-girl has most definitely been answered as Nora is OBSESSED with shoes, dresses, hair bows, anything shiny and dress up clothes. She picks her own shoes out most days and also has a strong opinion on which hair accessories she will deign to allow to be put into her hair. Her favorite outfit is a purple tutu, red sequin mary jane shoes and a purple jeweled flower headband. The girl has got good taste ;) And I LOVE that she is excited by all of the frilly stuff I have in her closet! Dressing up little girls might be one of my favorite things in the whole wide world! 

Her sleep schedule these days is not nearly as nice as Will's had been at her age, but its stable at least. She generally sleeps from 8pm until 8:30am, and naps from 1:30/1:45- 3:30p. Its nice to have times I can count on to catch up on chores, pay bills or make important phone calls.

In closing, I'll share an epic mommy brain moment this morning. I got Nora dressed as usual (or so I thought), and we went about our normal morning routine of breakfast and play time. During this time she had about 10oz of milk and 4oz of water. Then two hours later I decided to take the kids to play at a local play center. As I was putting Nora into her seat I noticed something was amiss. Apparently I had neglected to put a diaper back on her after changing her nighttime diaper! Somehow, amazingly, she kept her pants dry and this was not the catastrophe it could have been. I lucked out BIG time today!!!!