A Year and a Half!

Belated post on the girls turning a year and a half old on January 18. They had their 18 month check up at that time and are doing fine.

Grace’s stats:
25 pounds 10 ounces (70th percentile)
32 ½ inches tall (75th percentile)
48.5 cm head circumference (90th percentile! Hahaha)

Frances’ stats:
26 pounds 4 ounces (75th percentile)
32 ½ inches tall (75th percentile)
47.5 cm head circumference (80th percentile hehehe)

We had noticed a hard spot on Frances' heal awhile back (probably August). But thought it was a callous or something. And subsequently forgot to ask about it at the 15 month checkup, so I remembered to ask at this one. The pediatrician thought it might be a wart! Poor Frances. Too much playing at the playground and library without shoes or socks on this summer. Lesson learned. So anyway, Richard took her to the dermatologist who confirmed the diagnosis and said the treatments available are too painful. So either we subject her to crazy pain or she rides out the wart pain until it disappears on its own (whenever that is). In the meantime she had been limping from an injury to her other foot. Turns out it was a sprain. But we're better from that now.

The dermatologist also prescribed a steriod cream for the girls' eczema. The hydrocortisone just wasn't cutting it. We had some horrible horrible eczema in the diaper area that resulted in numerous "horror" scenes of us finding blood on crib railings and sheets from the girls (especially Frances) just itching and itching. Poor babies and poor, helpless mommy and daddy too! But this cream has been AMAZING. So happy now :-) And we don't have to use it everyday. Whew!

The girls are changing so much. The pediatrician said the language explosion occurs between 18 and 24 months and man-o-man it's like a light switch turned on. A lot of the change is verbal, they can say more things. A lot is cognitive; they understand so much and can point out so many items when you ask where x, y, z is. Grace is so crazy good at that. Frances loves counting. Albeit, not in order. She has favorite numbers to say: 2, 4 and 8. Funny girl.

They also are playing with each other so much more now. It is so amusing. They like our Michael Jackson CD and love to hold hands and dance to the music. So cute. I know, need videos - but they stop everytime we bring the camera out!

Frances likes the song "Bad." She sings along, "I'm bad, I'm bad..." It's so funny. You can ask her, "Frances, are you bad?" And she says, "I'm bad." Hahaha. So cute.

We are also getting practice at "timeout." Trying to ween them out of the whole "the world revolves around me" phase. It's hard, but so far timeout is working - we'll see how long that lasts! Ha.

We put them on the scale last night and they both weighed 27 lbs. 2 oz. Chunky monkeys!