She's a maniac (I mean this in the nicest way of course)!!!

What a weekend!!! It was Clay's 36th Birthday. I can't believe I'm married to someone who is 36. I can't believe I'm about to turn 33. How did we get so old so quick?!?!?!? I'm sure this is a question we all ask ourselves every day. I remember being in my 20s and looking at people who were my age now and thought they were old...kind of scary.

In celebration of Clay's birthday, we had a fun filled weekend! We basically spent most of the weekend watching Lola run around like a maniac. Seriously...it was NON-STOP!!! This toddler thing is CRAZY!!! How does this child go and go and go (with very few naps I must add) without feeling absolutely exhausted and just collapsing. Oh to have energy like this again! I have to say that by the time Sunday bedtime comes along I'm pretty excited to drop Lo off at daycare first thing Monday morning. Is that bad? It's not that I don't love spending time with Lola b/c I do...more than anything. I actually miss her so much during the day but sometimes she has a tendancy to wear me out to the point of exhaustion and I feel like I need a break asap!

After Lo went to bed last night, I started researching the "toddler years". Basically wondering how long we would be going at this speed. Well, it seems it will last until at least 36 months. Oh man...we're only at 15 months. Lola has started a lot of this "toddler" stuff a little early which means our toddler years are going to last a lot longer. Most babies just start walking good at about 13/14/15 months but not Lola. She was walking good at 12 months and is now 15 months and is full on sprinting...usually away from us. I found I can't even have a nice relaxing conversation with our neighbors without constantly saying "excuse me" and chasing Lola, then "excuse me again" then chasing Lola again....non-stop! Literally, we spent the entire weekend blowin' and going' and just try to keep Lola from killing herself. Trust me on this one...you can even ask my mom who after two days of keeping Lola is usually so exhausted that she has to stay in bed for a full day after the fact just to recover. I was talking to a friend the other day about losing weight. She wants to pull off a few pounds and asked me if I had any suggestions. I immediately suggested she should have a baby! She looked at me as if I was crazy but I said "I'm serious" b/c once they hit the "toddler years" you will NEVER sit...EVER!!! This is true. I NEVER sit down...EVER!!! But, on a positive note, at least I don't have to worry about my eating habits so much as I'm burning 10 trillion calories a day chasing Lola.

Temper tantrums! Fun, fun, fun!!! Well, they say these usually don't start until between 16 - 18 months. Of course, we've had the joy of experiencing tantrums for about a month or so. They got a little more fierce over the weekend. So, we just let her throw them and act like we don't hear her. She stops pretty quick. Clay and I absolutely will not have a brat child who throws fits. I let Lola get away with a lot but I won't let her get away with this. So, we're pretty stern when it comes to the temper tantrums.

The new thing this week is hitting. Yep...hitting...nice!!! She slaps me and laughs. She'll take her sippy cup and swing it at the dogs heads...poor things...they are taking it really well. I also caught her riding Lady Bird like a horse on Saturday. I wondered if she learned this from the horse race we had just watched on TV. Anyway, back to the hitting thing....Clay says it's ok and it's their (meaning babies) way of learning. They don't understand empathy right now and have to learn when you hit it hurts by actually doing it....not sure this makes sense to me but I'll go with it. My question is how do you teach and explain to a 15 month old it's not right to hit? When I tell her "ouchy" or "no, no...you don't hit", she just laughs uncontrollably and starts hitting again so I'm not real sure how to address this phase. I mean it's not like I can hit her back to show her it hurts. We'll see how long this one lasts.

I often ask myself if all toddlers are like this or if we just have a wild child on our hands? She was a good infant so are we paying for it now? Clay assures me that all toddlers can be hard to manage and we're doing just fine. I have to say little Miss Lola is full of personality and she has definitely come into her own so I guess this is just all part of it!

Oh, I almost forgot. We had Lola's 15 month appointment on 5/4. Can you believe it??? She is 15 months. I swear it seems like I just had her yesterday. Here are her stats:

• Weight 24 lbs 75th percentile
  
• Hight 30 3/4 50th - 75th percentile
  
• Head 48.6 cm 97th percentile