So grown up at 18 months!

Our baby is a year and a half already! She is making great strides physically and cognitively.

Today is Easter, and we had an Easter egg hunt with the girls in the living room, dining room and kitchen of the house. Yesterday, Sarah had taken the girls to another egg hunt at a park near our house, and Natalie was more interested in eating her snack than finding eggs. But today she understood what she had to do and was delighted to find a lot of eggs (with Daddy's help). In one of the eggs Sarah and I had put a couple of clothing items for a very small plastic doll of Lexi's. This was the best prize for Natalie. She squealed with delight several times. The simple pleasures of a child. That's what is making Natalie a delight at this age.

Lice!

On my way into the office on Friday, the school called. Lexi has head lice and I needed to come get her.  So I got on the train going the other way while I tried to remember who would be in early at the office so I could call and cancel my 8:15 phone meeting with Myanmar.

When I picked Lexi up, I could see a bug crawling in her hair.  The nurse gave me some literature and said that I had to show the receipt that I purchased the treatment to get her back into school.

We headed off to CVS and were soon home washing her hair with the special shampoo.  There were definitely lots of adult louse in her head. Yuck! We spent a fair amount of time combing it out of her head. 

I then proceeded to wash everyone's bedding, all Lexi's clothes and Natalie's,too, all the blankets and several pillows. Luckily, the daycare checked Natalie's head and said she didn't have them so I could leave her there while all this was going on.  Stephen, lucky guy, was in MSP for a board meeting. He missed most of the fun.

I also vacuumed and sprayed the furniture.  It made for a long day.

I think I washed Lexi's hair 3 times total on Friday and then twice on Saturday.  I decided I hadn't used as much of the treatment shampoo as I should have so did repeat that.  Even though I couldn't see my own head, I decided I had better wash it as well as it had been itching for a while.  I only found a few bugs in my head.

I re-washed Lexi's bedding and ours on Saturday morning as well as today.  I feel itchy all over!

Natalie is actually speaking to us

We learned recently, thanks to some help from Stephen's mother, who was here for a week in early February to watch both girls while we went on a cruise, that Natalie actually knows and is speaking some words. Granted, they are still baby talk, but we are actually starting to communicate with her and understand each other.

The words she says:

ha = hat
ba = bottle
ma = milk
ma/mama = Mommy
da = Daddy

Words/sentences she understands (she can identify or do these things when we say them to her):

hat
bottle
milk
nose (can point to her nose and other people's noses)
Get your jacket on.
Take your jacket off.
Get your hat.
Put your shoes on.
Take your shoes off.
Let's brush your teeth.
Take your food to the table.
Take this to the garbage.
What does the doggy say? "Woo, woo."

She can do the hand signs for "more" when she wants more food.

She is also nodding her head fairly frequently these days, and sometimes it means the right thing, but just as often she is saying "no" when we think she really means "yes."