ZJ is 19 months old!

5.6.13

ZJ has more than doubled her vocabulary this month and now says water, dada, money (doesn't know the meaning but likes to say it), banana, done, no, shoe, blanket (ba-duh), flower, fan, bee, butterfly (bu-duh) and doodoo.  That brings her to 27 words.  She's begun telling me when she poops, most of the time, and then running to the bathroom for a diaper change.  We've been putting her on the toilet for several months and she's peed a couple times but doesn't seem ready to consciously use it yet.  She is good with the shape sorter now and can stack rings/shapes but doesn't have much interest in doing it.  She also now puts puzzle pieces over the correct picture/place but needs work on fitting them in the hole.  She can now climb onto the couch on her own.  We introduced a regular cup for drinking and she's still in the stage where she'll dump the entire thing on herself if you let go.  She STILL throws all of her food all over the floor and it's very frustrating.  She loves drinking water and will go to the fridge and yell "water" until you get her water straw cup out.  She'll then drink and announce when "done."

She still loves books and would rather read than play with any of her toys.  She likes to give kisses to the pictures in her books while we read.  She loves playing with her brother and tries to mimic everything he does.  She's finally getting back at him for all the rough play she's been put through and will regularly knock him on the head with toys or hurt him in other ways.  She also gives him unsolicited hugs and kisses which he seems to appreciate.

Her naps have very consistently been an hour each day.  She is still very hard to put to sleep at night time and it usually takes an hour with her falling asleep at 8.  She wakes between 6 and 7 usually.  She does seem to be sleeping better at night.  Not waking much during the evening and less through the night.  But still way more than the average toddler I believe.

ZJ went 9 weeks without any sicknesses and then had 2 back to back this month.  The first was a mild cold and the second was a fever with some congestion.  Both were short lived and didn't bother her much.

We finally met with ZJ's surgeon this month and now have the surgery scheduled.  He described her congenital heart defects quite a bit differently than her cardiologist had and explained that he will be repairing the mirtal valve and patching holes between that and the tricuspid valve.