Wow. I can’t get my head around the fact that Ellie has been with us for this long. It feels so strange as I can’t remember a life without her in it yet of cause I still dream of a life with Jason too.
I thought as so much has been going on and I’d planned so many blog posts in my head I would do a general update of Ellie’s 16th month.
16 months!
The biggest milestone this month has to be Ellie’s walking (which happened at around 15.5months but I never got round to posting the post I had written🙈.) We have been practising for ages and had started going on short walks with Ellie holding our hands as soon as she started standing for longer on her own. We took her around a local woods and she loved the freedom of being able to choose where she went and which puddles to splash in. After a week or so she began just walking between my husband and I. She loved the praise she was getting and her confidence just grew. It didn’t take long from there for her to walk everywhere. She literally doesn’t stop, she never crawls anymore and is walking round the house without having to hold our hands. My baby is a full blown toddler!! I feel like I was looking at my newborn and suddenly blinked to find a toddler with so much personality staring at me. Ellie now loves to put her wellies on and go for walks.
This month has also seen a huge development in Ellie’s understanding. I feel like she is aware of what we are talking about so much more than before. She knows what to get when we ask for it, she always gets her ball or her shoes however when asked to get a nappy her reply is always “Nah” and she quickly walks off. She still doesn’t say many words but they are enough for her to get by and she is very good at articulating what she wants without speaking. While reading Ellie is becoming familiar with certain stories (We’re Going On A Bear Hunt) and joins in with the “uh oh” part of the story every time we read it which is so adorable.
Her love for music is growing too and now she is steady on her feet she is experimenting with dancing. She stamps her feet happily and turns around when the music is on. She also tries to headbang and has a proper good go at wiggling her body to the music.
This month hasn’t been all great, along with all the wonderful things Ellie has achieved so far, being 16 months old has also seen an increase in strops, tantrums, hitting out, saying no or nah, refusing her evening meal, dropping a milk feed before bed, no longer self settling to sleep, no longer being asleep at 7 but now dropping off around 8pm, waking up still for cuddles in mummy and daddy’s bed…you get the idea. I want this blog to be as honest about parenting after loss as it is about baby loss itself and it wouldn’t be honest if I left out all those bits too.
Nobody said parenting was easy and nobody said there wouldn’t be times where you’ve threatened to sell your child on eBay (and then instantly felt guilty because your first baby died and you shouldn’t have those thoughts at all!!)
I am so excited to see where month 17 takes us and what adventures we will be planning. I’m also pretty anxious to be seeing the back of March but want to start feeling slightly less anxious at Jason’s 3rd birthday in 12 days ❤
Mothering A Rainbow 