19 Months

She's done it again. She made it yet another month. She's growing, she's learning, she's becoming more independent. She's still the apple of her daddy and mama's eye(s).

She loves:
- daycareschool ("koo"),
- babies,
- waffles, cookies, crackers, and all carbs
- buses, trucks, and airplanes,
- horse, elephant, and lion noises,
- saying "idno" and shrugging her shoulders sheepishly,
- going for walks ("wa") to the park ("pa"),
- playing with the potty and saying "pee" when she sits on it clothed,
- helping and asking for "hup",
- taking her shoes/boots/socks off and trying to put them back on,
- her purple Keen shoes and only those shoes,
- spotting squirrels,
- when I say "G double O D E Y E" when she spots said squirrel,
- being included in any parent activities, e.g. being held while cooking dinner, drinking water only out of mama's glass, etc.,
- being with both mama AND daddy at the same time and being the center of their attention
- watching mama exercise on the elliptical trainer,
- coming into our bed every morning around 5:30 a.m.,
nursing before bed (yes, still),
- requesting I sing Wheels on the Bus ("buh, buh ... waaah, shh, shh"),
- tells me "go" everytime we get in the car,
- expressing her emerging opinions on many, many things, e.g. what she wears, what she eats, whether she can be touched, what toy she will play with, who she wants to hold her, etc.,
- pouting every time she bonks anything and requesting kisses

She doesn't like:
- veggies,
- any of the 43 pairs of hand-me-down shoes besides the purple Keen sneakers or the purple snowboots,
- putting on clothes in the morning,
- getting her diaper changed,
- being told "no",
- sitting in her high chair to eat,
- playing with toys alone,
- riding in the stroller more than 5 or so minutes,
- cries everytime Alex leaves, every.time.

Play:
According to my weekly email from Baby Center, kids at this age are starting to actually spend time playing with toys, up to 20 or 30 minutes. Not so for my little Bean, at least not yet. She will play around some by herself in the living room, but if I so much as get up to refill my water, she's drops what she's doing and beelines it for me. She's also not interested in TV, despite the fact I've been trying to get off the hook to cook dinner by plugging her in to Sesame Street. When she was sick yesterday, we did manage an entire 9 minutes of TV time on the couch snuggling together. I'll take it. This is all especially ironic because I thought we would be the kind of family to take pride in the fact our kid didn't like TV or video games or electronic toys. We would be proud that our kids only wanted to play outside and be active or read inside or do art. Hah. Sometimes you gotta do what you gotta do to catch a break (you know, a break like changing the laundry or cooking dinner). Or at least try for one. This weekend, however, she started actually playing with her baby doll. She waterboards her (she's probably just pretending to giver her milk), then covers her with a placemat, presumably for a nap.

Communication:
Her language skills still far outpace her speech production. She seems to have a very large vocabulary, although I have no idea whether it is the same, better, or worse than any of her peers. Some speech path I am. I swear she learns a few new words each day. Helmet, under, raspberry, school bus, tractor, squirrel, store, washcloth, away. You get the point. Not that you would understand these new words. They sound so much like her old words. "Buh" might mean bus, belly, bird, bonk, bath, bear. Or "buh buh" might be belly button, booger, blueberry, etc. But I usually know what she means. Plus being in context always helps. She's just barely started combining words, with a decently long pause in between, like "hup ... pee" (translation = help please), and uses gestures pretty effectively. She knows "two" and appears to know "too." She demonstrates this with accompanying gestures such as by holding one finger on each hand to show that she has two crackers or she sees two dogs, or by pointing to herself for "too," as in, she wants to come on a walk too. She has an emerging understanding of colors, although most everything is blue, then maybe green or purple. She still likes to sit in her carseat and run through a list of everyone's name she knows. "Mama, daddy, ish. Mama, daddy, ish. Beebee. Mimi, Papa, doh doh." She still says "yeah" more than "no," but "no" is making up the difference.

Motor:
Although I would never describe her as being very physical, she certainly doesn't like to sit still. Ever. She "runs," and I say this with quotes because it doesn't quite resemble the run of a grown child, but is a speedy  little trot, nonetheless. She doesn't giggle when she runs, but she sure laughs every time she sees someone else out for a jog. She still likes to dance and move around to  music, and she can stomp her feet and attempt something of a jump when shown how. She hasn't liked to climb up or down the steps nearly as often lately, and if she does attempt to go down, she wants to go down facing forward, on her butt, or by holding my hand, and reaching for the railing.

She's not great with self-feeding with silverware, but about a month ago I realized I hadn't even really been giving her the chance to try. If I scoop the food onto the spoon or fork, she gets it into her mouth the correct way. But if she tries to scoop it herself, she sometimes turns the spoon a bit to the side and will lose the contents as often as she eats it. She's obviously fine self-feeding with her fingers, and truth is, I always default to easier finger foods so I can multitask while she is contained in her high chair. That is, if I even make her sit in her high chair. I'm a terrible mother and I let her eat on the floor in the living room or running around more often than not.

Sleep:
She regularly naps midday. Left to her own devices, I think she'd go down between 11 and 1. But when I'm home with her I try to push it back a bit so that we can actually do something fun in the morning. If I'm home I still nurse her to nap, except she finally is at the stage where she nurses only a couple minutes, still awake, then I give her the Neenee and cuddle her, still awake, and then lay her in her crib. No cries anymore. At night she goes to bed between 7 and 7:30. On work days, she's up by 7 a.m. Sometimes she's still an early riser with Alex at 5:30 or 6 a.m., and some (non-work) days we stay in bed together until past 8 a.m. She regularly comes to bed with us every morning between 5 and 6 a.m., and I nurse her then for just a couple minutes, and then not again when we actually wake up for real. Needless to say, I'm not tired. And if I am, it's my own fault, probably for eating too much junk food or something. But certainly not because of my child (usually). Now that I've said that she'll probably start being a gremlin or something.

And finally, as if it doesn't go without saying, I love her and she's the best. And I'm still usually her best friend. And she mine. Even if she does disobey when I ask her to not poor water all over the rug or not to put rocks in her mouth. Plus, she's super helpful by putting things in the trash when I ask, or taking spoons from the dishwasher, or moving clothes from the washer to dryer. I think she's the cutest toddler I've ever seen, and I'm right.


***
Here are some outtakes from our photo shoot, because she was hamming it up this month. She clearly knows what's going on, once I put that fabric on the wall in her room. But she needs to be plied with snacks, as you can see from the remnants of goldfishy crackers on her chin ...