Karina is 18 months

As they say, time flies. I can't believe Karina will be 2 within 6 short months. If I could describe my toddler these days I'd say she was a sleepy, go with the flow, eat anything kind of gal. She is still pretty laid back but has now learned to shriek to keep her sisters away if she wants. She went through a short phase with full on tantrums. I quickly learned to let them pass, and then she was ready to move on. Karina takes one nap during the day but I am positive she would prefer two and would take them if she didn't have two older sisters that I had to run around with. Thankfully, though she sleeps on the go and I can easily transfer her from the car to the stroller and she continues sleeping. Now that it is summer and I don't have to wake her from her nap to go pick up her sisters, she sleeps for hours and into dinner time sometimes only to go right back to bed 2 hours later! I started to worry about this but realized she was going through a growth spurt. Speaking of growth spurts Karina will likely take after my height. At her 18 month check-up she was in the 5th percentile for height and 10-25th percentile for weight. The other girls have always been in the 50th percentile for both weight and height. So we think Karina will be the little one. Karina loves music and has started moving and dancing anytime she hears music. She will literally be walking and suddenly stop in her tracks to dance if music comes on. She started walking at 16 months. She was thrilled about it and slowly gained her confidence over a two week period and now she wants to walk everywhere. Karina has a few words and is quickly picking up more. Some words she says are, Mama, Da for Daddy, te for tres, ten (spanish for here you go), hi, bye, I for I love you, bebe, Jay for Jake, up-um for zapatos, na for Elena and ete for leche. She also signs finished and milk. One of the things I love that is new to this new family dynamic, is the way her older sisters help Karina. I think that with Elena and Marisa they were so close in age and so young to actually help that I didn't experience the help quite like this. But they love their baby sister so much. They make her break out in balls of laughter, distract her when she's upset and literally take care of Karina as they did when I was laid up sick on day on the couch. I love, love seeing this growth and this new experience, it's definitely one of those proud parent moments that make me forget those hard days.

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