Lydia Elise: 18-19 Months

This girl has grown so much in the past month. She's happy and such a sweet little thing - she makes David and I look like awesome parents just because she is such an awesome little girl. We've had a pretty busy month, going from event to event, to the store, to visit with family, and even a little spur-of-the-moment trip to Saint George, but Lydia has taken everything in stride and has been happy to go and do wherever we are going and whatever we are doing. It has reminded me a lot of when she was just a few months old and she was so happy to go out and about running errands with me and getting out of the house. I would call her "My little go-er girl" because she always seemed happier when we were going out to do something than staying inside. We are so blessed that that characteristic has carried through to her 18 month old self, because it's made our lives so much happier and easier that she is so content to explore the world around her everywhere that we go. 

Stats: She is solidly into 18 month clothes as well as 18-24 month clothes. Her 12 month clothes have all been outgrown (there were a few stragglers that she was still fitting into so I kept them in her drawers and I've been so sad as each and everyone have had to be put away). She is in size 3 diapers, but I think that they are starting to edge towards the small side and we'll probably be moving up to size 4 diapers in the next few months. She wears both size 4 and size 5 shoes comfortably, but the size 4s are getting a little bit on the small size. (The same shoes that used to be big and clompy on her feet are barely able to squeeze on.) She hasn't gotten any new teeth yet - just the four on top and four on bottom, however her hair has really started to come in. It's so fun to see her little blond head of hear bobbing around. (Although, we are approaching new territory as I'm trying to figure out how to do baby hair. She won't let a rubberband near the top of her head - so we are sticking with hairbows as often as possible still.) She's getting so much heavier, although her tummy is starting to thin out as she grows away from a baby and more into a toddler every day. 

Here are some other things that we'd like to remember from this month. 

--She hit 18 months and had a word explosion. Before then she was only saying a handful of words, but within a week of turning 18 months she could say 10-12 new words (including the animal sounds for a pig, duck, monkey, sheep, cow, chick, and frog). It was incredible. She will repeat almost any word back to you, but some of her favorites are: grandpa(pa-pah), milk, up, candy cane, downstairs/upstairs, dog, Dante, peach (sometimes referring to a peach and sometimes referring to an orange), cheerio (cher), roar (if you ask her what a lion or dianosaur say, she will reply with "raarr"), store, go, mom, dada, and will often be heard jibber jabbering to herself.  One of her favorite words is "All done" or "All gone"; and will say it at the end of every book, at the end of every meal, and each time she finds an empty granola bar wrapper. We love how much she's started to talk and love trying to teach her new words. 

--Lydia loves to jump. Her favorite game is to stand up on a piece of furniture and jump off into your waiting arms. If there isn't an adult around to play that game, she will lay one of her books on the floor and practice jumping off of that. 

--Lydia got a new grey dress from her Grandma Walker,  my mom, and when I got her dressed for church that morning I realized that I had a dress just like it! So we dressed up and went as twins to church. It was so fun. I really loved it. Until I get another little girl to dress up in matching clothes, I'll probably always try to coordinate my outfit with hers. (It happens often, especially on Sundays, that I will try to wear the same colors that she wears.) We even had matching red coats to go with our grey dresses. 

--I know that I say this everytime - but this girl has so much energy. She climbs on absolutely anything within her ability to scale (which oftentimes includes things that I think are outside of her ability). Chairs, counters, tables, people, boxes, etc... We've tried to let her have quite a bit of freedom as far as figuring out her body and letting her explore. (I think it's important to allow her to do things like that.) However, we do have some things that she is not allowed to climb on: namely the entertainment center, the kitchen table, and the chaise lounge. Hopefully this is teaching her boundaries without stifling her energy and movement. 

--At 18 months Lydia was able to go into Nursery, however, we've been gone a couple of weeks and then out ward split so she hasn't had a ton of time to just really be in nursery. I have gone in a sat with her several times and it seems like she is going to do okay - but she checks back frequently to make sure that I'm still there. We are hoping that she will do well. 

--If you ask her to put her shoes away she will pick them up and walk into the mud room and set them on the little shelf. She knows right where they go. 

--She has started to copy everything that we do (which is kind of scary). If she gets hold of one of our contact cases, she pretends to put in her contacts. If she finds my eyeliner, she puts it on her eyes. If she holds David's electric razor, she will hold it up to her face like he does. If I start putting things in her diaper bag, she grabs other things and starts filling it up, too. It makes me aware of the things that I'm doing that I don't want her to internalize. It's amazing how having a baby makes you want to be a better person. My goal number one is to minimize my computer usage while Lydia is awake (which might lead to less blogging). It's important to me that she knows that she is the most important; more important than any computer. It's readily apparent that she is internalizing so many of the things around her- I want to be showing her the good and wholesome things of life - and teaching her that she is loved.

-- Lydia is very tidy. She likes things to be clean and will often grab a diaper wipe and wipe off the chair/object. She likes things to be "all clean". 

--We invested in a little pink potty. Lydia had been showing interest in sitting on the toilet before we put her in for her bath at night, and has started telling us when her diaper is soiled (whether by saying "poop" or pointing at her diaper while whining). In fact her potty vocabulary is extensive; she can say pee, poop, and potty. We aren't pushing her into potty training - but we decided to start getting her familiar with everything so that when she is ready it is an easy transition. For a long time, as an attempt to keep her hands out of the toilet, we've told her to say goodbye to whatever is in the potty while we flush it. ("We don't touch the potty, Lydia, we just wave at it.") I feel like it's been a good thing to get her used to the sound of the flushing, as well as teaching her about the use of the toilet. Now, before her bath (not everynight, but when she wants to), we set her on her little potty and 90% of the time she pees in the little bowl. So then we dump the "pee" into the "potty" and wave "goodbye". 

--This girl loves her daddy. She always has - but it gets cuter with every passing month. Something that she's done a couple of times that make me absolutely want to melt is while driving in the car to go home to David I've told her that Daddy is at home and we are hurrying back to be with him. Then the whole ride home she jabbers "Daa-dy, Daa-dddy, Da-dyyyy". Both times she's fallen asleep before we made it back, but as soon as I pulled into the garage and opened her door to get her out the first thing she said was "Daddy?" and looked around for him. You could tell that she knew that we were coming home to him and fell asleep thinking about him, so that the first thing she thought of when she woke up is him. 

--Sometimes, she will grab a blanket and wrap herself up in it. She likes to lounge on the chair or couches, and sometimes will drag a blanket up there with her while she sits. 

--We don't let her watch TV very much, but she's started to show interest in watching some shows. She will grab the Wii remote and bring it to me to ask me to turn something on. It's amazing that she knows that. The only show that we really let her watch is Daniel Tiger's Neighborhood - and we really try to restrict it. But it's a darling show with good messages, and seems to be developmentally appropriate so sometimes when she asks - it's so cute that we'll let her watch an episode. Then we sing the songs for the rest of the day. 

--When she finds anything resembling a cell phone, she holds it up to her ear and chatters. Most of her conversations consist of the following: "Yeah? Nooo. No. Yeah. Nooooo." It makes me laugh and makes me wonder what my phone conversations sound like to her. 

--Our adventurous little girl figured out how to turn on the water in the master bathtub. She thinks that it is so funny, but really it's a problem. We don't spend a lot of time in this room, but everytime we were in there as I was getting ready - or the whole time that I was in the shower - she'd be playing with the water. My biggest fear was that she'd throw something over the edge that wasn't supposed to get wet (like a book) and then turn on the water. David and I kept scheming up these contraptions to keep her from being able to turn the faucet on. Finally one day, as I was in the kitchen putting the dishes away, I found this bowl and knew that it was the perfect solution. It looks kind of silly, but it has fixed the whole situation. At first she kept trying to get the bowl off (she was pretty upset) but now she doesn't pay it any attention. Hopefully when we get sick of it and pull it off, she will have gotten past her "turn on the water because it's really funny" phase.

--Lydia is a sweet girl and everyone loves to be around her. I snapped these couple of pictures of her and my Grandma and Grandpa Walker and I think that they are so sweet. Such a treasure. 

--It's amazing how every day she seems to be able to do something new. One evening we were sitting around and Lydia decided that she wanted to do a somersault. She was cracking up and we were laughing as well. She loved it! 

--She is such a social little girl. She loves to play with other little kids. Her Rencher cousins built a tunnel out of chairs and blankets and she loved crawling in after them over and over again. We call her our social laugher, because anytime anyone laughs - she starts giggling and laughing as loud as she can. She just loves to be involved with what others are doing. 

--We've tried to color with crayons and markers, but they all end up in her mouth so we haven't really done much with that. However, she does love pens. She loves to take the lid on and off and she loves to draw on paper with them.  

--Did I mention that she loves climbing on things? 

What things? Anythings. 

--Lydia is such a good helper! I can't believe how often she sees what we are doing and tries to help us. Everything from carrying in the Christmas tree to loading the dishwasher. She wants to help. 

--When we were in Saint George for Grandma McAllister's funeral, Lydia was playing with the drawers in the TV stand. She was opening and closing them, and it was really cute. Then she decided that she wanted to climb up into the drawer. We saw what she was doing but before we could stop her she had pulled herself all the way inside. (It's the middle of three drawers.) She laughed and laughed and so we took a pictures of this silly, happy, climber girl of ours.

We love you Lydia Elise. You make our days so happy, and we spend our nights talking about how darling you are. We love how happy and sweet you are. You make us want to be better parents and better people. We can't wait to celebrate Christmas with you in a couple of weeks.  Happy 19 months!