As the third child Stella sees everything her two older siblings do and wants to mimic them. If that's not keeping her busy enough, she has her own ideas of new things to try, explore and discover.
Her little body gets her into places her older siblings never thought of going. Stella loves balls. I think ball was one of her first three words. She loves to kick them, throw them for Arthur to catch, try to bounce them, you name it. I keep some anti-static balls in the dryer. One day, she happened to noticed them there and decided to climb into the dryer to get them out. Ever since then, every time I'm doing laundry, she climbs in and plays inside the dryer drum with the balls. All in all, is better than what she was doing before - eating out of the doggy dish.
Which leads me to another thing Stella loves even more than balls. Food. She can out eat both her siblings at dinner time and is constantly hungry. It's hard to track exactly how much she eats since her hand is just at the perfect height for the dog to reach, so part of it is lost to Arthur. Nonetheless, she still eats A LOT. There are only a very few things that she will not taste. So how is it that her body weight is only at the 7th percentile for her age? I'm guessing she's been blessed with a great metabolism.
Stella doesn't like feeling confined. High chair, car seat, even clothes. Normally when I put her down for a nap she'll remove her socks, maybe even her pants (depending on how long it takes her to fall asleep). Now she's extended her skill to unclipping and unzipping footed pajamas. I tried safety pinning the zipper, but she still managed to get an arm out. She looked like a three arm monster when I picked her up from her crib in the morning :)
I love my little girl. I'm always amaze at her creativity and determination. It seems as if it had taken her forever to begin walking (she didn't start until Mid-July), but now that she can get around however she wants, she's making up for it.
STATS:
Yesterday I took Stella for her 18 month check up. She now weights 21 lbs. 3 oz. (7th percentile) and measures 31.5 inches in height (34% percentile).
These stats are a lot better than her one year check up when at 17 lbs 2 oz, her weight was off the charts for a child her age and her height of 28.5 inches fell in the 25th percentile.
Her vocabulary grows daily but her most popular words are: Hi, Arthur, ball, 'milia, shoes, juice, mama, where are you? and Go!
