19 Months

Evelyn, every month you surprise me with how smart you are. This past month, Gigi met us one time at the soccer field for Spencer's soccer practice. The next time we were walking out the door to go to soccer, you started asking for Gigi.  Instead of jumping to conclusions and thinking you actually remembered that she was there once and thinking that you for sure knew that we were going to soccer, I just thought that sometimes when we leave the house in the afternoon, it is to go to Gigi's house, and that is probably why you were asking for her. But, as soon as we got to the soccer fields, you started asking for her again. You don't miss a thing.

You are hilarious and you love to do what Spencer thinks is funny or cool.  You love to imitate his evil plan laugh, and you always use it in the perfect social context, i.e., if you sneak off to do or get something you know I don't want you to. If I catch you, you look at me and say, "Ah ah aaaaaaah!" with conviction and a giant smile. Then you run away as fast as your little waddle-y run will take you.

You have started saying, "Oooh, man!" whenever you are disappointed. You will say it to yourself if you drop something or can't get something to work right. You will say it to me, through tears, when I tell you "No," or that we're doing something you don't want to do. You say it with all different tones and intonations, but you always use it just perfectly for whatever the disappointment of the minute happens to be.

You still love Barney, and I'm ashamed to say that you've learned many, many age appropriate songs and motions to the songs from that purple dinosaur instead of your mom.  You love to sing and act out the song they sing at the end of every episode. It is so precious.

You still love your bottle. Why you couldn't have loved it at 8 months, I'll never really know; but you sure love it now.

You also still love your paci.

Second only to bottles and paci's are babies.  We have officially lost the baby doll you got for your birthday, and just today (at 20 months) you brought me its clothes and asked me for it. Nana gave it to you for your first birthday, and you may have to ask for a replacement baby for your second birthday. And I'll insist you leave it at home precisely because you love it so much.

You went with me to Spencer's Easter party, and you thoroughly enjoyed yourself. There seemed to be only months as opposed to years between you and the kids in his class. You loved it so much, in fact, that you persuaded your mom who planned on keeping you home at least one more year that you had to be signed up for Mother's Day Out this fall. Since you're a September birthday, you'll be almost two when it's time to start.

Your second Easter was so much fun. We went to Easter events all weekend, and you discovered that you love candy, particularly chocolate candy, but you even made your way through some Twizzlers in your car seat. It did seem to upset your tummy, though, so while I was happy to throw caution to the wind in light of our risen savior, I was also encouraged in how I usually feed you. Your tummy just doesn't know what to do with all that sugar.

In April, you saw the ocean for the first time, and when it was warm and sunny, you really had fun at the beach. You also loved staying in the condo with family, and you slept in a regular bed much better than you've been sleeping in your crib. You had a few rough nights of being awake too much, but you had a couple nights where you slept all night. Getting you to sleep was hard, and I finally had to just leave you in there screaming. I told you if you got out of bed you'd be "disciplined," and you bought it, "protested" for a bit, and then went to sleep every time--naps and bed time. I wish I had figured this out at the very beginning of the trip, but it was also great to see that you can sleep in a "big" bed whenever we need you to. We did take side rails for the bed, and those are definitely necessary for how actively you sleep, but all in all you did awesome.

You did not do as awesome the one night we tried to go out to dinner.  You didn't want to sit there, and you let that be known loudly and frantically. We got through it, and you liked your Gulf shrimp; but it was wild.

You had another cold this month, but you didn't develop any kind of secondary infection, so we were very thankful for that.

You're really enjoying your books these days, and you have more patience for something reading to you.

You love avocado, refried ones, and string cheese. You want every single thing on your tray that is on any other person's plate at the table. It's great in my book, because you are trying all sorts of food that is good for you.

You are really a Mommy's girl these days, but you love Spencer and your Dad so much too. You really keep me on my toes, and I so love watching you figure things out and ordering your little world as you see fit.