Megan's 15th and 16th Months

Toddler: It is fun to see Megan as she develops into a toddler. The single biggest thing that has helped with this development is that she now toddles. Yes, Megan is a walker. She started taking steps regularly on her own in November, although she'd still crawl most of the time. She gradually walked more and more of the time until now when she walks virtually all the time. Even if she falls down, she stands right back up and keeps on trucking. She also likes carrying things with her while she walks. Sometimes she'll pick up pretty large objects, like a box or a popcorn tin. She does like walking!

Carrying Spunky (her dog) and Patches (Matthew's dog)

Eating: Megan is our neat eater. She feeds herself virtually all of her own food--cereal, soup and yogurt included. She is quite good at using utensils. Even if we put some food on her spoon for her, she likes to then dip it in her bowl like she's the one getting it on there. But really, we don't put food on her utensils very often. It's especially nice that she's neat since she has so much hair that doesn't get dirty most of the time. One funny thing about Megan eating is that she has food storage, or at least we figure that's what she thinks. She will take food and stick it down on the side of her booster seat. We will think all her food is gone and then she'll pull something up onto her tray. She's also started putting things down her shirt, although the retrieval process doesn't work so well on this.

Helper: Megan is a helper. For example, the other day, one of the baby gates was left open. Megan was going to go through it when I told her to not go through it. Not only did she listen to me, but she shut the gate as well. Another time when the gate was open and I didn't know about it, she went over to it and shut it. WOW! She has helped me unload the dishwasher by taking dishes out one at a time and handing them to me, she takes trash over by the cabinet with the garbage can in it, she helps pick up food on the floor. If she wants her water bottle, she often makes sure that Matthew gets his, too. She is doing all these things of her own accord (with lots of praise from mom and dad for her actions, of course). It's amazing to me! And I'm certainly going to do everything I can to encourage her to continue:)

Playing: Megan likes pushing toys around. A favorite is Sarah's baby stroller. It doesn't even need to have a baby doll in it, although it often does.

She also enjoys playing with Duplos. She got some for Christmas and has been stacking and unstacking them ever since. She is often seen carrying around a huge stack of them.

She's also started cuddling toys a fair bit. One favorite is her dog Spunky. She also likes baby dolls. In this picture, she's holding Sarah's; she got her own for Christmas.

Other tid bits:  Megan has started clapping. It's fun to sing songs that encourage both her and Matthew to clap along. She also folds her arms for prayers. Megan would like to point out that she thinks getting molars is really painful. She doesn't seem to like it one bit. Poor kid!

15 Month Stats (12/6/2011):

Weight: 22 lb 6 oz (67%)

Length: 31 inches (67%)

Head Circumference: 18 inches (52%)

Cuddling Cat-R-Pillar

Standing on Thomas looking at her mail