Have I Told You Lately...

...that I love you? Another month and a whole new set of things to love about my little girl. You have started saying "mommy" a whole lot more but it's not always for me. It always sounds just like "mommy" but it is frequently used when just pointing at random things so I like to assume you're saying "mommy" to get me to look at it and tell you what you're seeing. You also have your first official two-word phrase. It's "NO MOMMY" which is not necessarily music to my ears - but sometimes it means - NO, I want my mommy and that melts my heart! A few other words this month are milk, moon, and bubbles.

Your feet have hit another growth spurt which makes me glad that I bought big at outlets and spring consignments sales. You're measuring close to a size 7 now. You're very independent when it comes to your shoes. You like to pick out which ones you're going to wear and you try as hard as you can to put them on yourself. However, they never stay on for long. No matter how short our car trip is, your shoes are off by the time we get there and every time we pick you up from church nursery, you are barefooted.

Your dad and I have officially created a monster when it comes to one of your routines. BEDTIME! It's really not an inconvenience - but it just takes forever because you are so particular about things. Here's a review of how bedtime goes. We take a bath which has it's own routines but not near as complicated. You're out of the bath and you sit in the sink while your hair gets blow dried and you apply lotion to your legs. Then we take turns brushing each other's teeth. Next we go get diapered up and put on pajamas. Then we go to OUR room where you have to climb up on the bed yourself and turn on the TV yourself and watch 5 minutes of whatever is on nick junior. Then you have to turn the TV off and slide off the bed. Now we are in your room (with the lamp on, sound machine set to air, and closet light on) and we cuddle into the rocker together to read some books. There are a stack of books on the nightstand and you pick through them and let me get through about 3 pages of each book before we're off to the next book. The only ones we can actually finish are Goodnight Moon and The Big Red Barn. After books, you turn to face me and we say our prayers. You clasp your hands in the most adorable way and sometimes I peek through my closed eyes to see if you've closed yours. You haven't but your're looking right at me while I pray. I say AMEN and reach to turn off the lamp and you urge me to say more prayers by signing MORE and clasping your hands together. While I like to think you're longing to learn more about God and be closer to Him, I know you're just stalling. But I oblige and say one more quick prayer and then turn off the lights. We stand up and I carry you over to your crib and you toss all of your bunnies in the crib first. I turn on Violet (a puppy dog that plays 10 minutes of bedtime music) and lay you down on to bunny pillow. Then I have to hand you bunny blanket and one bunny lovey. But you're not interested in the actual bunny part - you only want to hold the tag and you rub the tag on your face as you drift blissfully off to sleep.

Seriously. We do this every night! But I love it! We take turns as to who actually puts you to bed and bathes you so it's not much of a bother if we only really have to do it every other night!

Your new favorite toy is our Aqua Doodle - It's basically a big mat that you draw on with a water/sponge pen (which is currently MIA). It's absolutely no mess and you love having your hand or foot traced.

Your new favorite animal is a duck. You make a hilarious quack sound that sounds like my grandfather who smoked for 60 years clearing his throat. All birds and chickens are ducks but we'll sort out the differences later.

Your favorite real food is yogurt. My mom asked me the other day what the limit was on how many you could have in a day because she says you reach for one every time the refrigerator is opened.

You're not great at sharing right now. You try and grab as many toys as possible and say NO if anyone else tries to have one. So we are changing our terminology from SHARE with so-and-so whereby you have to give away some of the toys to LET so-and-so have a TURN whereby you give them EVERYTHING you have in your hand and anxiously await getting them back!

You've fallen back in love with strollers. You like to push your baby stroller around and you like to push your own strollers too. You also like to go for rides in the stroller which you haven't enjoyed pretty much since 6 months old.

You grow more and more each day both physically and mentally. This 20 month milestone puts us in the final few months stretch before the 2 year mark. I am so excited for the things those months hold for us but I love where you are now too. Your daddy and I both do!