I have so many other posts to do, but since this one is a little more time sensitive, I figured I should take care of it first. Introducing, our growing (too fast, B says) 19 month old!
She is super sweet…
…and full of fun!
She likes cake (or at least the frosting)…
…and her big sister…
M is doing so well sleeping with B in the same room. She still occasionally gets fussy at night (if she loses her bink or has a stuffy nose), but B sleeps like a rock, so it doesn’t seem to bother her, and M seems to be less fussy now that she is in there with B. Yay! She still naps great (2.5-3.5 hours at home), though they both seem to wake up earlier now that they are in there together. Fortunately, they also just seem to play together for a while until it is time to get up.
Her vocabulary is taking off! She now regularly does 2-4 word phrases (milk please, treat please, mommy up please, mommy help, mommy’s car, daddy’s car, no means no), and even had a 5 word phrase the other day (night, night Daddy – love you!). She seems to be saying new words every day, so it is getting hard to keep up. Recent additions include mine, treat (teet), help (hep), car, bike, diaper (dipur), computer (pooter), Mackenzie (Ma-keh-zee), sleepsack (seepsak), airplane (ahhpane), delicious (deedishus), yummy (nummy), and puppy (puppy). B spends a fair amount of time saying things/phrases slowly and having M repeat after her – it is adorable.
Speaking of “mine”…it is one of M’s favorite words these days, especially if someone has something she wants. B does not care for it at all (though she now understands how important it is to be careful what she says around M, since M learned the word from B!). She also likes to smack people. She mostly smacks in fun (a “game” her Daddy taught her), so it is tricky to teach her that while some don’t mind (Daddy), others (Mommy, BB, her teacher, her friends, etc.) do mind. B is being a great big sister and with a little guidance, she is helping with both. This too shall pass.
She is still more particular about food than I would like, but she eats well from the selections she deems acceptable. Favorites still include french fries, smoothies, canned green beans, avocado, yogurt (especially banilla), and sauce, with favorite snacks including goldfish (gofeesh), pirate booty (paya booee), pretzels (pettils), and teddy grahams. We recently discovered that while she loves noodles, she now seems to like them even more with spaghetti sauce. This may seem obvious, but I promise that in the not too distant past, she wouldn’t touch spaghetti sauce or anything that came into contact with spaghetti sauce. Progress! She won’t eat much in the way of fresh fruits or veggies, but she will sometimes eat carrots, black beans, corn, and blueberries.
When she wants something, or needs help, she generally walks up, grabs my hand, and takes me to wherever so she can point to whatever it is she needs. She loves to be outside, dance, play with BB, ride her trike, slide, swing, play with her fridge toys, and read books. She has definite favorites about many things, and she is NOT afraid to tell you about it. She also loves to imitate B, which can lead to some interesting situations!
Her hair is getting longer – lovely curls in the back, straight on top. It will be interesting to see whether the curls or the straight wins out. While her hair is not as long as B’s was at this age, I think her hair is darker. It is possible she will end up with darker, wavier hair to go with her beautiful brown eyes.
She is growing so fast! Thought I can’t really tell you in numbers. In a couple of weeks I’ll take her to the doctor for her checkup (yes, I’m super late with that), and we’ll get the official numbers. As B regularly says – where did my itty bitty go? No matter, she keeps us on our toes and delights us all!
We spent the weekend of M’s 18 month birthday in the mountains visiting J’s step-dad, Bill at Bill’s sister’s beautiful mountain house. We haven’t seen Bill since B was a baby, so it was a treat to get to see him and let him meet M and enjoy the girls.
We picked up B from school about an hour early and headed out expecting to arrive around 9PM. That plan was quickly obliterated. Fifteen minutes after we hit the highway, we hit stop and crawl traffic…for 75+ minutes due to an accident. Because of that, we subsequently hit rush hour traffic. Three and a half hours into our trip, we had only gone 150 miles. At this point, everyone was cranky and stressed, so we stopped for dinner at a Cracker Barrel. The girls had a great time with the rocking chairs!
Unfortunately, M ate her dinner and drank her milk a little too quickly, so she spit some of that up. When we got back to the car I decided to just change her there…much to her delight…as soon as I got her clothes and diaper off, that child promptly peed on the asphalt and then started running around (trying to avoid capture), naked as a jaybird…
We proceded on with our trip only to hit another section of stop and crawl. Basically, by 11:30PM, we were still an hour+ away from our destination (remember, we left at 2:30 for what should have been a 6.5 to 7 hour drive…). We gave up and stopped for the night.
The next morning we finished our trip to arrive at the mountain house. Whew! We had the entire downstairs to ourselves, where B oooohhhhed and ahhhhhhhhed over the pinball machines and The Girl’s Room – all done in pink and beads and fun toys and… While I thought I got a picture of that room, apparently I did not.
The first thing the girls noticed was The Bear – a GIANT stuffed bear (about my size) that entertained the girls, and particularly M for hours that weekend.
After naps, we went down to the stables to see if B would be interested in riding one of the horses. She wasn’t, but M sure would have if we had let her! The girl even fearlessly pet them and fed one of the horses a carrot. B was quite content to admire them all from a distance. 
That night we celebrated Jason’s upcoming birthday with steaks (Jason’s fav) and birthday cake – I’m pretty sure M enjoyed her cake…
The next morning we went to a nearby mountain lake, which I was pleasantly surprised to discover was warm! B loved that lake! M did too, until she fell in the water one too many times, where each fall caused more sand to go down her pants…
We also got to meet several members of Bill’s family that we had never met before – it was a wonderful trip, although much too short!! And, the trip home was MUCH more pleasant. We stopped for lunch at our dear friend Lisa’s house and got home at a reasonable time.
Later that week, we celebrated Jason’s real birthday. B decided he wanted cakepops, and since he never indicated otherwise…he got cakepops (which B and I made ourselves)…
Whew – I am so behind! Lately, it seems like the only chance I have to do blog posts is on the weekend, and the last few weekends have been hectic. So, I’ll try to knock out a few blog posts in the next couple of days, starting with M’s way overdue 18 month post.
This picture quite effectively captures our Miss Personality (aka lil bit, aka our menace, etc.). She is on the go the minute she wakes up and she wants to get into, explore, play with, and do EVERYTHING. She is very adventurous, much more so than B ever was or even is now. In the pool, she is fearless. She has no comprehension that she cannot swim, no comprehension that she cannot just magically make herself taller, and no concern what-so-ever about water coming up to her mouth or nose. She’s gone under so many times now, at this point she has learned to hold her breath before she actually goes under! I think next summer will include swim lessons…
The day she turned 18 months we were in the mountains and she got to visit with some horses. She was all about watching the horses and petting the horses.
She even fed one of the horses a carrot (sorry, I don’t have a picture of that)!! She thought the experience was one big grand adventure, and she was NOT happy when it was time to leave.
At 18 months, M is a pretty good sleeper (11-12 hours at night, 2.5-4 hours in the afternoon). She even takes a 1-2 hour nap at school when she is there. The girl likes her sleep, and will tell you “nigh-nigh” when she is ready.
As for food, we are still hit or miss on many things. She still loves avocado, pretty much any type of baby food (“sauce”), turkey and cream cheese wraps, blueberries, black beans (especially those given to her at school), cantaloupe (pretty much only at school), peas (only at school), smoothies, cheese (especially the free samples at the grocery store), chicken nuggets, noodles, egg whites (scrambled eggs, not so much), toast soldiers, gold fish, pretzel crisps, and pirate booty. She prefers fruit to veggies (really, other than sauce, she is not much interested in veggies at all). She also is not much interested in sweets, unless it is sorbet or ice cream. While it is sometimes a challenge to make sure she eats enough of the right foods, the girl can eat…she is in no danger of starving…
Her vocabulary and comprehension is really taking off. Unlike B, however, we need to be more diligent about taking her bink away (probably her favorite thing in the whole wide world) to help her speech development. Favorite words include B-B, bink (binkie-binkie), Mickey, sky kitty, kitty, sauce, noodles (noonos), milk (mik), more, Mommy, Daddy, and night night (nigh-nigh). She has also started branching out into multi-word phrases, e.g., milk please (mik peas), more milk please, more sauce (mo sas), Mommy up, socks and shoes (goks and goos), etc. She also is quite fond of identifying various body parts (eyes, ears, mouth, nose, cheeks, tummy, knee, etc.). The only downside is that the eyes are her favorite…and she likes to point them out when she says eyes (e.g., poke you in the eyes repeatedly). We’re working on that… at least Bear doesn’t mind…
She chatters constantly, and even I only understand about half of it. But she definitely has something to say, and is not afraid to say it!
She walks great (falls down much less), and has even started running. It’s necessary to run, you see, to keep up with B and to chase Sky Kitty… She also puts that mobility to good use, as she loves to help. She will help get her shoes, throw things away, get the lunch table ready at school, etc.
If you compare the girls’ hair at this age, they both have roughly the same color hair (though I think M’s is a little darker). At 18 months, B had longer hair, but it was stick straight – not a curl in sight. M, on the other hand, has curls in the back. I am very curious to see whether the curls continue or if she ends up with straight. I think she just may end up with wavy dark hair like her daddy, or curlier dark hair like her Mimi. Only time will tell!
She is quite the social butterfly – she knows the names of all her school buddies, and loves to interact with them all. She also loves to tell them what to do and how to do it. I’m told she was the first to be able to say all of their names. I don’t know if any have managed to say hers – it is a pretty big mouthful for a toddler!
Best of all she LOVES playing with her sister! The two of them seem to have a great time together, playing with cars, being silly, etc. It is wonderful to hear their belly laughs so much!
Now that B is in kindergarten, M has me all to herself on Tuesdays and Thursdays. Honestly, both of us are still trying to figure out what that really means. It is quite strange to not have B around deciding things for us and telling us what she wants to do. I’m sure we will manage, though! It is fun to be able to do some things with her that B would perhaps not be interested in, or wouldn’t have much patience for.
