Monthly Updates

Dear Anna,

Today you turned 21 months old. So much closer to two than one, it’s amazing how much you’ve changed from baby to little girl in this past month!

You love your books, just like your big sister. Your new thing is to let me read you a book, then you take the book from me and read it, page for page, back to me. You have a crazy good memory, and even though you don’t say every word in the book, it’s remarkable to know what parts you enjoyed enough to retell. You will even do this with books we haven’t read for a while, or at least not since before you started reading them back to me. Like I said, your memory is really, really good.

You have 14 teeth now, but I know for sure that there are two more working on popping out sooner rather than later. I can *almost* feel them poking through, but it’s hard to be brave enough to stick my finger in there with all those teeth you already have!

You love being outside. You would live outside if you could! Your first request after breakfast is “shoes, ‘side!” every morning. And now that we have the sandbox, it’s become “shoes, ‘side, sand-ee box!” Days when you get to come out early enough to see Carrie off on the bus are the most exciting, and you adore walking to “Gamma’s” house to see Grandpa (and Grandma when she’s not at work.)

You love the pinwheels I “planted” in our front garden. You look out of the family room window every day and point to the “flow-ahs” and try to blow through the window to make them spin. You love to carry them around and hold them up in the breeze.

You have a new baby doll, who at one point was named “Nemo” but now just appears to go by “Baby”. She’s pretty much become your lovey – she has to sleep with you, and not only that but I have to put her to bed too. If I sign “I love you” to you as I start to leave your room, I hear “Mom-eeee! Show Baby!” and I have to sign “I love you” to Baby as well.

You know, I think you must practice being cute and adorable while you are happily playing in your crib before anyone else gets up in the morning. It’s the only way you could have gotten so good at it. Pretty soon, the cuteness might overwhelm us all!

Love, Mommy

Dear Anna,

Today you are 19 months old. You are definitely out of baby mode and full-on into toddler mode…and an independent toddler at that! You are very much done with the walking bit. Now, you run. And when you’re not running, you’re climbing. You have no fear. Not one little bit!

You thrive on our routines. Every night, you climb up the stairs, go straight into the bathroom, climb up on the step stool, and wait (impatiently, I might add) for your tooth brush so we can brush all 12 of your teeth. From there, it’s into your room, where you demand that I turn on the lights so we can get you the rest of the way ready for bed. And you live for the bus, every afternoon. You wait with me (well, at least on the days you wake up from your nap early enough) until we see the bus coming around the corner. And then you light up with excitement over seeing “Dee-Dee”. (We think that means “sister”, but I suppose it could mean “Carrie”.)

You are completely hooked on TV. Your favorites are Dora (still), Mickey Mouse (which you call Nikki’s Mouse), and you even like to watch “Ar-fur” (Arthur) when your sister comes home from school. It does sound like a lot, but I really do promise that most days you don’t watch all of those things.

You are starting to grow out of your 18 month clothes. You have an enormous amount of clothes to choose from: your big sister’s old clothes, Nikki’s old clothes, clothes that I saw and wanted to buy for you…some days I feel like I’m drowning in little girl clothes! And now it’s time to dig out the 24 month clothes and sort through everything once again…

You absolutely can’t get enough books. We sit on the couch and snuggle together and read for a half an hour at a time. At that point you usually wiggle your way down and go play, but that’s a darn impressive attention span for such a busy little girl!

And you are busy. Busy driving cars around while making “vroom vrooom” noises, busy stacking blocks and “reading” books and getting into mischief. You are my little monkey, and you keep me on my toes!

Love, Mommy

Dear Anna,

Today you are eighteen months old.  That’s a year and a half – we’re halfway to two already since your birthday, which doesn’t seem like it was all that long ago! You have 10 teeth now: two of your molars have poked through.  Hey, if you get a couple more teeth in soon I might not need to cut your food into such teeny-tiny pieces anymore!

Your favorite words and your obsessions are one and the same.  You love Dora.  I cannot stress this enough; love may not even be a strong enough word.  Dora, Boots, Backpack…they’re practically all you talk about.  Also, Elmo.  I really, truly don’t understand the appeal, but you do love that furry red squeaky monster.  Sigh.  It causes you fits of baby rage that I won’t let you watch unlimited amounts of Dora and Sesame Street daily, but as I’ve already told you many, many times, I’m the meanest Mommy you’re ever going to have, so you’ll just have to learn to deal with it.

When you’re not begging for “mo’ Do-la”, you’ve been enjoying playing with the Potato Head set you got for Christmas, and stacking things like blocks and cups.  You also really love to color, although you have the words crayon and paper mixed up for some reason.  The other day I got out the sticker box, and you and Carrie spent the better part of an hour sticking stickers all over construction paper.  Somehow it didn’t seem to make a dent in the sticker collection, either…

You’re still napping and sleeping well, and are especially loving the new toddler pillow you got for Christmas.  It has monkeys, stars and moons on it.  As long as you have your pillow, your blanket, your quilt, your dolly, your baby, your Minnie, your aquarium, and your lullaby CD, you are all set at night.

So.  You’re eighteen months old now.  Which means, you are a Big Girl.  And Big Girls don’t sit in a high chair anymore.  Big Girls also will not be carried up or down stairs, will not be fed by anyone else in any manner, and must be treated equally to the big sister.  I had forgotten how interesting eighteen months could be.  Luckily, Big Girls are also sweet and funny and adorable, so I think we’ll both survive.  At least until nineteen months, anyway!

Love, Mommy

Dear Anna,

Today you are seventeen months old.  Another month before you are officially one and a half!  You’ve gained one of your top molars to bring your total number of teeth to nine, and you’re just on the verge of outgrowing a lot of your 12-18 month clothes.

What else is new this month?  You have a lot of new words and a lot of new signs.  Your favorite words to say are “belly”, “Molly”, “star” and “‘nack!” (you use this one a lot to get snacks).  Other fun new words are “plate”, “fork” and “Nee-Nee”, your best friend Nikki.  I think we’ve been out shopping with Nikki and her mom just a little too often, because pretty much whenever we get in the car to go anywhere, you start asking for “Nee-Nee”!

You’ve learned how to climb up on the chairs and couches, and I swear you’re going to give me a head full of gray hair by Christmas.  Because once you climb up on those chairs and couches, you stand and walk around on them without a care in the world.

When you’re not playing Danger-baby, you have a lot of fun playing with your baby doll.  You really, really love babies – dolls, pictures of babies, babies you see in the mall – you’re obsessed with babies!  You’re also still obsessed with books.  First thing in the morning, before Daddy leaves for work, he walks into your room to say goodbye, and you ask him for a book.  That occupies you long enough for me to get dressed and start getting your sister ready for school.  And once your sister gets on the bus, you get your daily episode (or two, if I’m under-caffeinated) of Signing Time.

You are exhausting to parent lately, with your constant need to climb and explore.  Luckily, you still go to sleep really easily and sleep all night.  You’ve chosen a couple of loveys finally – a pink plush “my first doll” and a small baby Minnie Mouse.  Oh, and “Billy”, your small taggie square.  (I think maybe “Billy” is a combination of “blanket” and “pillow”?)  Now I just have to somehow manage to get myself to bed at a reasonable hour so I’ll be able to keep up with your danger baby antics!

Love, Mommy

Dear Anna,

You are sixteen months old today.  I waffle between thinking that sounds so young and thinking that I should probably stop thinking of you as a baby.

I’m sorry to say that I’ve totally lost track of your words and your signs.  You have so many at this point that it would probably be easier to list the things you can’t sign or say!  Some recent cute ones are that you can sign “sister” and that you say “nose” (well, “no-oh”) whenever you see a tissue.  You also say “‘appy!” when you’re happy.  You’re starting to sign colors – green, red, yellow and blue – but I don’t know that you know what they mean yet.  It’s a really good thing you sign in addition to speaking, because many of your words sound exactly the same.  You basically can only say the consonants “b”, “d”, “n”, and “p”, so any words that rely on any other consonants are pretty tough to figure out.

The past few days, while I’ve been so sick, you’ve watched a lot of Signing Time episodes.  You’ve been obsessed for a while now, but now you’re a complete addict.  Oh, well, at least it’s educational, right?  Besides, your sister watched a ton of Signing Time as a baby and she’s turned out pretty well so far!

You are a little independent stinker pants now.  You want to do everything yourself.  Everything.  You use a fork and you make a good attempt at using a spoon.  You climb up on the step stool so you can reach a box of animal crackers on the counter, and you’ve figured out how to open the box and get snacks out.

You also have started having little mini baby tantrums.  Let me just tell you, it’s really, really hard not to laugh when you’re laying on the kitchen floor, kicking and pounding your fists.  And why, you might ask, were you having this little tantrum?  Well, really, it all comes down to me being a mean mommy.  A mean, mean mommy, who won’t let you climb into the dishwasher.  Yes, I’m really that mean.  And yes, mini baby tantrums are really that funny!

I know it’s cliche, and I know I felt the same way (and still do) with your sister, but the age you’re at right now?  It’s my favorite age.  Every month you’re more fun, interesting, wonderful…more you.  I’m loving watching you turn into a curious, spunky, exciting little girl.

Love, Mommy

Dear Anna,

Today you are fifteen months old, and what a big girl you’re becoming!

You are obsessed with Signing Time.  Truly, truly obsessed.  Every morning, the minute we come in from putting your sister on the bus, you ask for Signing Time.  Every morning, I give in, so I can drink my coffee and eat my breakfast in peace!  Because of your obsession, however, you have a lot of new signs that you’ve picked up and regularly use: “baby”, “signing time”, “hat”, “penguin”, “mouse”, “cookie”, “daddy”, “pear”, “bird”, “bear”, “doll”, “yellow”, “shoes”, “stars”. 
You also have quite a few new verbal words: “apple”, “boo!”, “bye-bye”, “Signing Time” (more like “dih-dih-dah!”), “pasta”, “cheese”, “Poppy”, “hi”, “dog”.  You shake your head “no” a lot in response to things, and it’s really adorable because your hair swirls around your head with a life of it’s own.  When your words fail you, you’ve figured out how to point to an item you want, and then point to yourself to indicate that you want it.  In short, you’ve got the communication thing down pat, and you’re just working on adding to your vocabulary.

You’ve figured out how to stand back up in the middle of the floor by yourself, without pulling up on anything.  Pair that with your walking and climbing skills, and it can mean nothing but trouble for me!  No rest for the weary, right?
Every month brings such big changes, and every month you get cuter and sweeter.  I love being your mama!

Love, Mommy

Dear Anna,

Yesterday you turned 14 months old.  Somewhere in my feverish haze I vaguely realized it was the 12th, but then I had to take a nap.  I feel slightly better today, so let’s see if I can make sense…

You are walking!  Truly, truly walking, although you also still like to “bear walk” on your hands and feet and are happy to crawl sometimes depending on the situation.  You especially love to walk around outside while we’re waiting for your sister’s bus in the mornings and afternoons.  I won’t need to bother raking this fall, I’m just going to let you loose to pick up each leaf one at a time, it’s your very favorite outdoor activity.  You only try to eat them sometimes…

You have two new verbal words, “ball” and “down” (which is really “dow-dow!”).  At one point (in front of several witnesses) you said “button” as clear as day – a few times, even.  But you haven’t repeated it since.  You don’t really have any new signs (though you sort of sign “ball”, which I suppose is new) but you point a lot.  You’re pretty good at communicating what you want, and I’m sure the word explosion is just a couple of months away – by Christmas you’ll probably be asking Santa for a pony!

You have a bedtime routine down: when it’s time to go upstairs, if you’re being carried, you say “dow-dow!!” and insist on crawling up the stairs yourself.  Then you crawl into the bathroom, climb up (laboriously) onto the step stool (again, all by yourself) and grab the toothbrush that I’ve put toothpaste on for you (while you were climbing up).  While you “brush” your teeth, I finger-comb your hair, and then sometimes you let me take a turn with your toothbrush.  Then I put you on the floor and let you toddle off down the hall to your room.  Your favorite book to hear is Goodnight Moon, and you’re starting to point out the things in the pictures as I read about them.

Your personality is just starting to blossom, and each day brings something new.  I’m enjoying every bit of it!

Love, Mommy