RC Daniels: All June

June hit the fifteen month mark on June 5th. She is a hilarious and spunky little baby and constantly makes us laugh or groan.

As of this morning, has gone one week without nursing. I think this is it. I think we are through. Even though I have been ready to be done for a while, it is still making me quite sad. I stopped her evening feeding two weeks ago. She protested a little, but not too much. I think she would still willingly nurse at night if I sat down with her, but she doesn't cry when I put her right down to bed.

Since I was down to only one morning feeding, my milk supply dropped even further. She was starting to get frustrated because some mornings she really wasn't getting much. Ryan happened to be home in the morning so he got her up and fed her while I hid elsewhere in the house for six mornings in a row. After she's eaten, when I come out she doesn't whine to nurse. However, I got her out of bed today because I wanted to let Ryan sleep in for Father's Day. June howled and screamed and tantrumed and refused food for nearly 45 minutes! Several times she was full on, face down, laying on the floor, kicking and screaming, tantrumming. I probably would have given in, except that it had been almost a week and I was pretty certain that no milk would come out.

So, there I am. Happy, but right now feeling sad. I just feel badly that she can't have her comfort and something she wants. I don't want her to be confused. I also want to keep her small and cuddle her as long as possible! But really, it was wearing on me because she has been so attached and it was hard to leave her for anything. It's also frustrating for me when I don't have enough milk because I want her to have enough when she's struggling to get it. I hope that being completely weaned will help her eat and maybe sleep better since she won't be holding back at dinnertime in anticipation of nursing that night.

June is such an outgoing personality. She loves to be where the party is and often tries to finish eating early if she can see other playing and fun things going on while she's in her high chair. She has been experimenting with sounds and words and a few days ago said, "Nana! Nana!" and pointed at the banana. She was extremely pleased with herself for coming up with the word.

With each milestone she gets funnier and more clever and is really quite the ham. Unfortunately, the opposite emotions are expressed in larger increments as well. I really don't know what I'm going to do when she hits the terrible twos! She is so expressive that she constantly makes me laugh. She just started getting interested in reading books. Instead of passively letting me read, she gets very animated. If a book has a mirror, she likes to wave to herself and say, "hiii" and then she laughs and laughs. If it is a touch-and-feel book, she loves to wave hi to the animal and pet it and rub it on her face. I put on a Baby Einstein for her today to see if she would be interested. Not only was she interested, but she was constantly laughing out loud at everything that was going on. She's so different than Willa, who was/is always very cautious and rarely showed a lot of emotion in the beginning.

June, unfortunately, has found more freedom and more trouble with walking. The more she can do, the more she wants to do. Instead of passively sharing a toy or letting another child take the toy like Willa did, June is the big bully who tries to take the toys away from other kids, push other kids' hands off the toy, push Willa off of mommy or daddy's lap, and HOWL if she is thwarted in her aims. We met my parents and Curt and Jen in St. George on Friday for the day. The kids played in the water and in some fountains. The fountain water would occasionally go off and she got very angry and had lots of gestures and grunts to show me that the water was off and that she was NOT happy about it.

She just keeps surprising me with how outgoing she is compared to Willa. She experiments with words and gestures and picks things up quickly. If I start singing to her while I change her diaper, she immediately starts the hand gestures for Itsy Bitsy Spider because that's her favorite song. Today, we were singing If You're Happy and You Know It and after just one time, the song came on again (on Pandora) and she started doing the actions and clapping her hands like crazy. She says, hi, bye, dada, mama, Lala (Willa), cheese, 'nana, woof, and who knows what else. Willa wasn't saying that much at two. She definitely knows the word for outside, because if I ask if she wants to go outside, she makes a beeline for the back door.

Sisters playing on the couch.

At the St. George Children's Museum - a GREAT museum for such a little place and only run on donations. I'm using this picture to show her being naughty and taking the steering wheel away from Willa.