Better than we could pray for: 18 Months

Before it's over! You're still 18 months, so this counts!!

The longer I'm waiting to write this, the more and more I have to write about!

Today you weighed 23 lbs, 6 oz- 60%

You are 90% for height

90% for head circumference

You floored the doctor today by naming the alphabet crackers I was giving you. You know about 15 of them. This is hardly surprising, though, as the only books you want to read are ABC ones. But you still don't know or recognize your colors. You can say and sign all of them perfectly- but your color recognition accuracy is less than 5%!

Jeremy commented the other day with a wistful sigh, "Your middle name should have been Joy."
It's so true. You bring so much joy to the family. Especially for Samantha. She knows you adore her. You two are inseparable in the mornings and after school. Sure, you get on each other's nerves when you've been together all day, but in the mornings and after school you two are best buds. The current favorite activities are reading and watching/listening to Signing Time.

Your vocabulary is absolutely insane. Before your appointment I was making a guess as to how many words you could say, as I knew this was a question they would ask. You have really great pronunciation, so even strangers are able to understand what you are telling them. More often than not they will ask how old you are and can't believe how well you talk. Anyway, I burst out laughing when they asked if you were saying 2-4 words. The number I had in mind was 100 times that!

This has been the month of vocabulary explosion. You are not a big fan of screens (thank you JESUS) so I was wondering if you'd like Signing Time as much as your sister did. What finally got your attention was the music. Oh, how you love music! When the music started you looked up and were hooked. Part of our daily routine now is watching one episode after we get home in the afternoon. It's 20 minutes of crunch-time for me, as it's 20 minutes that I'm guaranteed without interruption. Sometimes I nap, but I usually get the budget done, start on dinner or finish some work e-mails. But it's no more than one episode. After that you've lost interest. When the episode is done you and Sam make a bee-line for me and we wait for Daddy to get home.

We looooove watching the light-bulbs click as you learn more signs. Sam preferred to sign and the speaking came later. You prefer to say the words (if you can) and will sign to clarify when we just can't understand you. For a while, your favorite was "Monkey" and "Gorilla". Monkey sounded like "Cookie" so the sign was very helpful! You couldn't say Gorilla, but man oh man did you like signing-it. Especially to get people to laugh!

Back to the music- Jeremy started singing to you "Hail Mary, Gentle Woman" as a lullaby. You started asking for "May-we?" whenever we'd cuddle with you in the dark at night. Then it progressed to whenever you were cuddling. Now it's at the dinner table, in the car, while we're cooking- and you demand that everyone in the room sing-along. You know the words so well now that you'll lip-sync while we all sing and I've even caught you signing the first line over and over to yourself. It makes all of our hearts melt.

You are a dream sleeper...pun intended.
You go to bed between 7-7:30 (fairly flexible) and wake up around 6am. You nap for roughly 2 solid hours around noon. Very predictable and very very very much appreciated.

However, my love, you are a very picky eater. We were quite spoiled in this department with your sister. You would probably live off of yogurt (gur), pizza (peeza), spaghetti (ketti), muffins (uff-IN), ice cream (cweam) and granola bars (BAR) if we allowed it. Luckily you're still nursing twice a day and you'll drink (cow's!!!) milk (nilk) when offered.

Towards the end of the month, here, you've mastered a few new things. You are way to confident on the stairs, can go down a slide by yourself, proudly say your name (Saw-yot), climb onto the couch, swing on a big-kid swing (and even lean back and give mommy a heart-attack) and get into "position" when you have a poopy diaper to be changed.

Finally, your patience is turning against us and becoming loud persistence. I can turn on a trickle of water in the bathroom sink and you will play with it until we turn it off...mind you, this could be well over an HOUR later. You L.O.V.E. to wash "hans". And as long as we remember to clear out any towels/cups/pieces of loose clothing the mess is minimal when you are done. But you want to do this all the time from the moment you finish nursing in the morning. And you repeat it over and over and over and over and over- louder and Louder and LOUDER and LOUDER until someone answers you 10 times in a row. And if the answer is no- oh, goodness the tears. Luckily the tears are not NEARLY as loud as your sister's and you tapper off after a minute or two.

Ok, that was a lot for 18 months, but this is quickly becoming our favorite age.

You suffer from some wicked allergies too. This was the day I decided "screw it" and gave you Clariten. Worked like a charm! You are a sensitive one. Allergic to penicillin and still react to corn and store-bought wipes. I'll be testing egg this summer...

Quick story- you had a HORRIFIC cold during these pictures that turned into strep. Your poor nose and eyes were like faucets. At one point you sucked IN all the boogers. I yelped a loud, "EW! GROSS!" and Samantha fell into a ball of giggles. Which, of course, made you do it again and declare "GWOAH-S". Now all boogers and diaper changes are "EEEEWW! GWOAH-S."