Lydia Elise: 20-21 Months

Someone around here just turned 21 months old. This girl just keeps getting cuter every day!

Stats: Wears size 3 diapers during the day but we've had to transition her up to size 4 diapers at night because the size 3 diapers aren't big enough to handle overnight anymore. She still only has four teeth (there is one tooth that is threatening to break in, but it still hasn't completely made it in yet). She's starting to grow out of her 18 month clothes, but the 24 month clothes are still much too big. 

-This girl is so smiley and happy pretty much all the time. I really can't believe how good of a baby she is. (I guess I can't say baby anymore - she doesn't have any baby left in her at all.) The only time she is ever really sad is when she has a diaper rash, but even then as soon as she gets some Desitin on her bum then she cheers right up. It's amazing how happy she is. She's started saying "Cheese" everytime I take out the camera and grinning up at me. I love it.  

-Loves milk. She always asks for water (wa-wa) and then when you fill her cup with water she says "Noooooo. Mik!" while singing milk. She drinks like four cups of milk a day. She is also a really great eater. She loves fruit more than anything. (This month is was bananas. "Nana, nana?" She couldn't get enough.) But she also eats most other things really well. The only things that she doesn't eat are the things she has a hard time with (like lots of bread, or broccoli stems).

--Loves playing on her trampoline and will try to convince anyone who comes to visit to come and jump with her. She will come over and grab you by the hand and pull you to the tramp to get you to jump with her. I love how much she loves it.  

--So inquisitive. She pulled off all the marker lids earlier and I let her play with them and some ice cubes in a tray of water. She couldn't figure out how the color was coming out of the lids. I loved watching her explore and learn. I wish I knew of more activities like this, because they only last for a couple of minutes and she's never as interested the second time. But she does love to learn.  

(on the note of being inquisitive, she sat and played with this golf ball for over ten minutes, letting it balance and fall off the edge of the chair then jumping off to get it and climbing back up)

 -Her Chicka Chicka Boom Boom book is one of her favorites. She bounces around the room while you read it and whenever you say "Boom boom" she yells "Booo Booo!" Some of my other favorite things: when you get to the middle and say "The whole alphabet up the...." and pause, she'll say "Oh no!" (which is the next line, but she says it SO cute). Then at the end of the book when there are all of the letters listed, she can point out the "Y" and say "whyyyyy", and point to the "D" and say "Dante". We spell all sorts of words by pointing at the letters, and it's fun to see her picking up on them. 

--She went through a phase when she didn't want to sit in her high chair. She freaked out as soon as we'd try to put her in there. So we spent a week or so letting her stand at the table to eat her food, which was so funny and made her seem so old. However, we are back to sitting in her high chair and I think we are all happy to be back to normal.

--She's getting good at making Block Towers. She makes them on the floor that are as tall as she is. She makes them on the trampoline. She makes them on the entertainment center. She's such a good builder.

-We have a great bedtime routine. It involves reading a billion books (or two books a billion time), reading our scriptures, singing a song, brushing teeth, saying a prayer, filling up the sippy cup with water, and snuggling with mom or dad in the chair before laying her down in her crib.

-When she wants some raisins or pretzels, she brings me a little orange tupperware bowl (it's only about the size of a quarter) and asks me to fill it. It's too cute not to let her have whatever she wants. So when she grabs my hand and pulls me into the pantry with a little bowl in her hand, I pretty much always give her some raisins. 

-For some reason she loves to color on her doggie. If I turn my back for a minute and she finds a marker - it always ends up on him. Luckily we haven't had a huge problem with her coloring on walls or anything, but something about this dog begs to be colored. He's got sharpie on his nose, Crayola markers on his head (washed out fine when I was giving her a bath one night), and today I found dry erase marker on his ears. I know that I need to figure out a way to keep the markers away from her, but she can climb so high and likes to color on paper - so they sometimes get left out.  

--She said her first sentence! We were at my parents house getting ready to Matthew's homecoming and she pointed to the Pink Salad and said "I want to try it". It was crazy. Now she's putting words together all the time. Most of the time her sentences starts with "I want". Like "I want milk", or "I want nana's", or "I want a treat" (that's a problem one). I can't believe how much she's talking. 

-Other things that she's saying so much: Up, Okie Dokie, Church (while pointing at a dress), Grandma (she's only said Papa for a long time, so when she said Mama for grandma it was really exciting), Horse(She says "Nay" for horse, it's darling), Necklace (I didn't know that she could say that until we were walking through a store and she pointed to one and said "necklace"), happy, and help. She will also repeat basically any word back to you. It's amazing. 

-These are her two best friends. She mostly plays with Carson while Elsie does her own thing, but she gets the most excited when she see's Elsie. They really are best friends.

 -Lydia has started jumping down the stairs. Step by step she jumps both feet at a time. She's so silly and a little dangerous. I try to make her hold my hand whenever she jumps, but she's got really good balance so I tell her to stay safe - but I am secretly proud of her ability.

 -She's been fighting her sleep schedule like crazy. I don't know what to do. She was taking an early nap around 9:30, then pushed it back to ten, then eleven. She acts tired, but then she just hangs out in her bed for an hour talking and crying. I think we've finally got it figured out and I'm putting her down at one even though she is acting tired earlier. I have to wait until then. But if I wait too long, then she doesn't sleep because she's too tired. It's a delicate balance.  

-She loves loves loves reading books. We read a lot of books. My favorite is when I walk into a room and see her reading a book all by herself. Even if she's just looking at the pictures, it makes me happy. 

-Speaking of books, This is one of Lydia's favorite books. It's called "Little Blue Truck". We read it probably 20 times every night. The funniest thing is that the book is about a little blue truck, but her favorite part of the book is the dump truck. She fill flip through the first half of the book until you get to the dump truck and then she just wants to sit and talk about the dump. We talk about the rocks, and the rain, and the dump truck. She loved it so much that we decided to buy a little yellow dump truck for her to play with. We gave it to her when she was reading her book and she was so surprised! She's vey well rounded in the things she likes to play with: dolls, shoes, blocks, balls, trucks, cars. She loves it all.

  

-When you ask a question, she says "Otay." Which is perfect when you say "Will you come with me?" or "Go grab that toy", but it's so darling when you say "Do you love your dog?" or "Do you want some dinner?". It's not completely inappropriate, but just a slightly different word than "yes". It's cute.  

--Lydia really likes to help me make breakfast in the morning. Specifically, she loves to help crack the eggs. I think it's cute, and I'm impressed with her coordination.  She will "crack" the egg on the edge of the bowl, then squeeze with all her strength to break the egg. Once it is smushed, she will pull the two pieces apart and let the egg fall into the bowl and put the shell back into the container. So cute!  

--She's such a sweet, happy girl and we love her very much. Happy 21 Months Lydia!