Fifteen and Growing

Grace has been 15 months old for more than two weeks, but today was her official 15 month checkup with the doctor.  She's a healthy peanut these days, weighing in at 21 pounds, 1 ounce and stretching out to 29.5 inches.  That makes her a solid 75th percentiler on the Down syndrome growth chart.

Here are some of the things Grace is up to at the ripe ol age of 1-1/4 years:

Eating many new foods.  She's a girl who prefers people food over the baby variety, especially now that she's got some chompers (still on all the top row).   Her recent favs are chicken fingers, eggs (especially if Grammy makes them), pasta, waffles and sandwiches.

Drinking much more.  She's a whiz with the straw cup.  She loves juice through the straw.   Milk...not so much.

She loves to celebrate her accomplishments and usually starts the clapping for herself. 

Commando crawling.  Everywhere.  We're scrambling to secure wires, clean floors and find a more child friendly tv stand.  She's even starting to get her tush up which means the full fledged crawling is almost within reach.

Grace is in love with herself.  She has a hard time passing a mirror without checking herself out.  How YOU doin'?

Signing/talking.  She now has 2 clear sign language words:  more and eat.  No wonder she's in the 75th percentile.  She's still babbling but has been expanding her sounds and has even imitated some words like bubbles, all done and pop...although she's reluctant to repeat her imitations.

One thing she does like to imitate is kissing.   She will blow a kiss.   And if you pucker up and make a kissing sound, she will come in for the kill.   She does not pucker up, however, so expect full open mouth and tongue.

Laughing.  She laughs a lot.  Not necessarily a hearty laugh, but a little hoarse cackle.  It's like a smile with sound.  We'll try to capture it for you soon.

These are just a snapshot of the daily life with The Gracer.  She's a great kid who really is as happy as she seems in her pictures.  How lucky are we?!