18 Months Old

As always it's a shock when these dates approach and we realize you are that much older. 18 months already and you definitely are no longer a baby but a toddler who is like a sponge soaking up new things every day. You have learned so many new words, tricks and love to mimic what others are doing and trying to be a big kid.You are independent, stubborn and feisty but you have a smile that lights up the room and a personality that makes us smile and laugh every single day.

 You've learned a lot now that you are 18 months and here's a recap:

• Your obsession with food and your high chair continued. You are a slightly pickier eater but still do a pretty good job. You actually were so crazy about your high chair and always screaming to sit in it that we decided to take it down. You now eat in your booster seat at the table like a big girl and you are really liking that especially eating with mommy and daddy.
• You love to put clamps together - like the car seat and high chair kind. You want to try to snap them when you get in and when you get off you have to stay to try to put them together and you get mad when you can't get them snapped. You will randomly go over and play with them as well just trying to get them together.
• Your favorite foods are cheese, pudding and cereal and you LOVE freezy pops.
• You have a a whole long list of new words since 15 months: baby, moo, roof roof, me me me (we hear this one a lot), nose, bath, cheese, all done, Dora, backpack, map (can you tell she likes to watch Dora :-), Paigey, Arker (Parker), owie owie, twinkle, puppy, grama, pa pa, tickle, nigh nigh, ankie (blankie), yum yum, uh oh, hot, beep beep and up. I know there are more but those are the ones I know you say. When you get really excited and talk a lot, we still hear a lot of your own language babbling, which is cute.  
• It's fun to see you putting words together now like - "hi Ziggy", "where's daddy", "all done", "sit down", "I got you", "go bye bye"
• We hear owie owie for everything - hair brushing in the morning, tripping, sitting... You say it a lot.
• You definitely know the word no and say it with some attitude. This has also led to the implementation of time outs. You do great staying in the one spot for time out but usually when the minute and a half is over you are still screaming and thrashing your arms back in anger. 
• Your major loves in life are puppies, daddy, Dora, Ziggy and Paigey
• If you ever see puppies (tv, sitting in the car, outside) you make sure to yell it out
• You miss daddy when he is gone and ask for him often
• You've associated all tv's with watching Dora - you point to the tv and say "Dora Dora"
• You still love Ziggy so much, you love to give him kisses and think it's hilarious how he follows you around when you are holding food. You feed him a lot now as anytime you drop some food you yell "Ziggy" - so he knows to come and eat it. Guess it's nice that we don't need to sweep :-)
• You love Paige and Paige is the sweetest older cousin to you. She always helps you out at the playground or play areas and makes sure you can make it up all the areas. She's really going to be a great babysitter someday because she is so awesome already at helping to take care of you. 
• You are learning lots of animal sounds - you know: Ducky - "ack ack"; monkey - "Eee Eee"; cow - "moo"; puppy - "roof roof"
• You have 12 teeth (6 on top and 6 on bottom)
• You still love your blankies and need to hold them anytime you get up (usually insisting to hold 2). It still doesn't matter which one but you love the silky ones grandma makes. 
• You can point on command to your nose, belly, eyes, hair and mouth. Nose is your favorite and then you like to go touch everyone else's too.
• You like to be helpful, it's nice that I can give you trash now, tell you to throw it away and you can go over and do it. If you find any dirt or mud on the floor you always pick it up and bring it to mom and say "uckie". Let's hope house cleaning follows quickly. 
• You love to play "tickle, tickle" and love to tickle mom and dad. 
• You like to be a copy cat and do the things that mommy does like brushing your hair, brushing your teeth or cut your nails. 
• When we open your diaper up to change a poopy you say "icky".
• You have a serious shoe obsession but it's not really about which shoes it is, but whichever are closer that you can put on to go "bye bye". You bring us your shoes all the time. You LOVE going bye bye - when we get to go you cheer and get so excited. When you want to go and you don't get to - you are a very unhappy camper. 
• The only real drawback about living close enough to the park that you can see it is that you always want to go there. You love the park! You walk around and want to do everything there. You can do almost everything without any help and it makes it easier now that you can do so much by yourself. You love to swing and go down the slide and enjoy climbing on anything. You have no fear and try to climb up on all you can - usually resulting in small fall. 
• You wish you could drink every drink out of a water bottle but it leads to lost of backwash. 
• You love to watch birdies out the window or in the car.
• You still have no fear of water - you love the Splash pad, bath time, sitting in the pool on the deck, anything with water really. You will fully submerge your head in the bathtub or go face first into the water jets at the splash pad.  You are trying to swim by kicking your legs in the bathtub. 
• It takes you a while to warm up to new people but once you do you love to play with them.
• You will finally sit down and we can read a full book together. Now you will bring books to us to have us read them to you and sit on our laps the whole time and want to read them over and over.
• We had our first biting incident at daycare. Apparently you got upset and the teeth came out. It's only happened once though and let's hope it stays that way!
• We are testing out potty training. You like sitting on the toilet and playing with the toilet paper but you usually sit there for a while and then say all done and rarely ever actually go potty. We'll keep working on it.
• Favorite TV show: Dora
• Favorite Song: Old McDonald
• Favorite toys: Parker's old garbage truck, balls, books, golf clubs and cash register
• Your hair is getting pretty long. We can put it in a full pony tail now but it doesn't stay very well. 
• You are wearing size 4 diapers, size 18 mo to 2T clothes and have almost grown out of size 5 shoes and into size 6.
• As always, you are growing way too fast into such a wonderful little girl. You keep us on your toes but that's probably a good thing for us. We love you to pieces.

Happy 18 Months Leah!