Hadley's 18-month update

Hadley is 18 months old now and she definitely not a baby anymore, but a full-fledged toddler! Our little Haddy-kins is just a little bundle of energy and is always on the go-go-go! Her newest fascination is with climbing on everything or anyone around her...Daddy, the couch, the ottoman, the kitchen stool! She also loves to run and "jump," and she's doing great at learning to throw and catch a ball. Haddy also loves to dance! At her 18-month well-baby checkup, she was in the 25th percentile in all areas. She weighed 21pounds, 11ounces, was 31" tall, and had an 18" head circumference.

Since my last update, Hadley colored Easter eggs for the first time, and also went on an Easter egg hunt at church and at Grammy & Granddad's house! She didn't completely get the idea, but once she discovered that there was candy inside some of them, she decided that Easter was pretty fun!

Hadley loves reading books and playing with her princess and Mickey Mouse Clubhouse figures. She also loves everything that has anything to do with water - the pool, the ocean, playing in the sink or the water table, or just taking a bath! Hadley had her first experience with playing in the ocean (and in the sand) over Memorial Day weekend and she had an absolute blast!

Hadley has adjusted well to her new big sister role. She gives Carlie about 20 kisses a day & loves to sing to her and rock her while she's in her swing. We have appropriately nicknamed her the Paci Patrol because she is always at her sister's side the second she starts to whimper or cry, so that she can pop her pacifier back into her mouth...even at times when we'd like to let Carlie fuss it out a bit.

The past month or so has really been a huge language explosion for Hadley. She has a vocabulary of over 100 words including some two-syllable words, and she has begun to string together two or three word sentences/phrases ('my baby,' or 'I kiss baby' are her favorites). She can appropriately answer questions about "how many?" or "what color?," but her answers are always "2" and "blue" respectively.

Hadley has also just recently (finally!) graduated to the big girl bathtub for her baths. Thankfully, it was a smooth transition which was mostly only put off for so long because we were procrastinating on getting a good bathmat for her tub. The hardest part of the process has actually been getting her OUT of the tub at the end of bath time! Usually we have to drain the tub while she's still in it, and even then she would find some reason to keep hanging out in there!