18 Months Old

Once again, a day late. How is my baby girl one-and-a-half?!?!

at 18 months, Lane:

*makes more animal sounds, although most of them aren't correct! At least she's trying. She says "lalala" for sheep (?), "bock bock" for bird, something uninterpretable for frog, and she growls for a lion. It's fantastic.

*still loves the song Old MacDonald. She's also decided to "relike" Twinkle, Twinkle, Itsy Bitsy Spider, and If You're Happy and You Know It. She indicates she wants to sing Twinkle Twinkle by opening and closing her hands (like the "twinkle twinkle" sign in the hand motions), Itsy Bitsy Spider by putting her index fingers and thumbs together, and If You're Happy and You Know It by clapping and then squeezing her cheeks (we point to our mouth when smiling at "face will surely show it" part). It cracks me up.

She loves this book, CAT, so much that she's ripped all the "extras" out of it (flaps, the cat's movable tail, etc). The book is only three months old but it looks three decades old.

*still has 12 teeth but her first eye tooth is about to pop through any day.

*loves to jump on our bed. Since moving we now have a chest of drawers with a mirror over it that she can see into when she's on our bed. She likes to watch herself in it, jumping, twirling, and swaying until she tumbles over or dives face-first onto the bed.

One of her new favorite things is to climb in this bag (LOVE the bag, by the way...think it's Land's Inn) and then have us carry and swing her around in it.

*is very good at stacking blocks. She is very precise in setting them down and will readjust them if she can tell that the stack is going to fall. She can stack larger blocks on top of smaller blocks, and can stack them quite high.

*loves to kiss people and her dolls and stuffed animals. She also loves to kiss Aubie (Auburn's tiger mascot) on Shannon's wall calendar.

With her "guys": kitty, giraffe, and blankie. These are what she sleeps with and what she most often totes around the house.

*is taking great naps since we moved and got darker curtains for her room. Usual is three hours now!

*is starting to get into her 18-24 month clothes (although honestly it's so hot these days that most days she just wears a diaper unless we're going somewhere). Still wearing size 5 shoes.

*can climb ladders at the park, go down the slide on her own (she prefers to flip to her belly), and is a master at stairs. Sometimes she can walk up a few stairs without holding onto anyything...it usually depends on how tired she is.

Snoozing hard! (And still sucking on blankie when she's upset or at bedtime.)

*still just says three words. I'm beginning to think she's just stubborn (hmm, wonder where she got that from?).

*Is back in cloth diapers after a 3-month hiatus (nasty diarrhea from getting her molars + my sensitive first trimester nose + two moves = 'sposies for her). Her bottom seems to be faring well. =) She also frequently grabs the underneath of her diaper but I'm not sure if it's when she goes to the bathroom (sometimes she's wet, sometimes she's dry) or what. She also likes to sit on the potty but only for about two seconds. We're hoping to get her her own little potty in the next week or so.

Playing in the pool on our balcony. She prefers to toss the crabs and clothes pins out and then get out and get them, or to use her cup to dump water out of the pool and then get out and play in it. She spends very little time actually IN the pool.

*will "help" me with the laundry. When I'm taking laundry off the rack on the balcony if I give her a piece of clothing and ask her to go put it on the couch, she does and then comes back for more laundry.

*Loves her Frosty the Snowman Hallmark recordable book from Nona Lou. She likes all of her Hallmark books and will open them, turn the pages, and listen to them on her own, but Frosty is the one that she brings to us the most often to have us read to her as well.

My girlie drinking from a cup and eating her favorite snack (black olives and fruit) on her 18-month birthday. I can't believe she's so big!