19 Month Update

Today Lucy is 19 months old. The months keep right on flying by. I thought I would try and do a pretty comprehensive update. I love reading other people's updates, and I think this is such a great way to be able to look back on some day and remember what she was doing each month.

Size:
I think she is about 21.5 lbs. That is what our scale says, but who knows how accurate that thing is. I don't know about height. She has always been really tall. I have been buying all 18-24 month clothes for the summer with a few 2t's mixed in. She still has the smallest waist, so the bloomers are always too big and pants absolutely must have an adjustable waist. We were at the park the other day with a little girl who had the exact same birthday as Lucy, and they were almost exactly the same size. I am very pleased with her growth.

Talking skills:
She will still attempt to say almost anything we ask her to, when she is in the right mood. She gets really frustrated when she is trying to tell us something and we can't figure out what it is she is talking about. For the most part, I know what she is saying. My favorite words that she says are opposites, octopus, oh man, heavy, airplane, mama, ouchie, outside, picture, elbow, and blankee. She says all of those in such a cute way. She thinks that the word heavy means difficult, so any time something is hard to do, she says it is heavy. Cracks me up. She says stand up, come on, i do, ice cream, help please, hi ____, buh bye ____, and a few other linked phrases. Her very favorite phrase is 'nother one, which works in a variety of situations - it works for asking for more of something, for wanting something different than what she currently has, and for just wanting to do something differently. She says it all of the time. We are constantly amazed by her talking. She usually only has to hear a word once to remember it, which is why we have to be very cafeful with what we say around her!

She says tons of animals noises and imitates with actions lots of animals. We went to the petting zoo yesterday and the goats you can feed kept baaaaing at us. She baaaaed back a lot. Most of the time when she hears a dog barking, she says, "SHHHHH!" since I have to tell that to our dogs so often!

She will name lots of her body parts - hair, nose, eyes, mouth, ears, chin, cheeks, arms, hands, fingers, elbow, shoulders, belly, legs, knees, feet, and toes.

Physical Development:
She has mastered the art of the somersault with perfect form. She loves to march, jump, twirl, and climb. She is still working on using a spoon and a fork, but she definitely insists on doing it herself now and gets really mad when I even try. She can hold colors and pens correctly, but doesn't always do it. She can safely get on and off any piece of furniture that we own. She climbs stairs upright - which is really scary, but that is how she does it. She has all of her teeth that she will get until her 2 year molars.

Personality:
I would definitely still consider Lucy to be extremely reserved with strangers, but she is really starting to open up more and more. It doesn't take her near as long to warm up to people any more. She loves and is totally comfortable with (obviously besides Justin and myself) her grandparents, our neighbor Christy, and Mandy. Anyone else takes some getting used to. She likes to play with other kids, but prefers bigger kids. She loves Anna, as we have all seen. Anna is three and her brother is 5 (Lucy also loves Louis, Anna's brother). She can get really mad about having to share. She is VERY opinionated and very vocal about her opinions. Unfortunately, many days NO is still a favorite word. It is not nearly as bad as it used to be though because I try not to say it often. She is not scared to let you know that she does not like the way you are doing something. She is a very happy child, most of the time. Her smiles and laughs are totally contagious.

She is still absolutely fearless. She will climb on anything and when she is ready to come down, she always assumes you are there to catch her. We are so lucky we haven't had any major accidents, because she really will just jump off of anything. She LOVES the big slides and jungle gyms at the park. I have finally gotten to a point where I actually can trust her abilities enough to allow her to play more without me hovering over her making sure she doesn't fall. She wants you to push her high on the swings. She was not intimidated one bit by the massive amount of crazy goats trying to get her food at the petting zoo. Other than strangers, there is not much I have found her to be afraid of.

She has a never ending supply of energy. From the time she is awake until bedtime, she is on the go. It keeps me very busy. She is seriously just a very busy little girl. She is girly in that she loves to play in my makeup, put on chap stick, and pick out shoes, but she loves to get outside and get dirty. To me, she is the perfect mixture of frills and dirt.

Eating:
Still a poor eater. Still eats fruit almost exclusively. Has completely given up milk for the time being. I am not stressing out about the milk any more - she gets it in cereal, pudding, yogurt, and cheese. She loves pancakes, waffles, peas, mac and cheese, and squash. I can usually get a couple (maybe one or two) bites of meat in her, and that is it. I generally hate meal time because it has been a battle from the beginning. I have taken the advice of giving her dinner and being done with it - what she eats, she eats. She is clearly getting enough because she is very healthy and growing.

Sleep:
She takes one nap a day from around 12-2. This can varely greatly. Some days it is only for an hour and some days it is three hours. You never know what you are going to get. She is so easy at nap and bedtime now, but it took us a very long time to get to this point. At nap, I simply say, lets get your blankees and rock and she comes right to me. I usually rock her for a few minutes and lay her down. She sings for a while and then is out. Most days she will lay in there and yell at the top of her lungs, MAMA!! MAMA!! She is not at all upset or actually needing me, she simply loves to hear herself get so loud and mama is always her choice word. She goes to bed between 7 and 8. We read before we rock, then I rock her and say a prayer, and then I just lay her down. She doesn't usually talk or sing at night because she is so tired. She usually sleeps through the night, but sometimes wakes up for a very short while. One of us just has to go in and rock her for a minute and then she is back down. I have a lot more I want to write about sleep and how we got to this point, but I will do it in a post I have going on attachment.

Favorite things:
-The park - we go almost every day. She loves everything about the park.
-Any outside activity - her sandbox, kicking a ball around, picking up rocks, etc
-Reading books - she has recently developed a strong opinion about what book we are going to read. She will pick one up, look at the cover, and either decide it is not the right one and toss it or bring it to me to read. She insists on sitting in your lap when you read. Sitting on the floor next to her absolutely will not do. On the last page of each book, she says, "the end." I always tell her to pick out a certain number of books each night. The number depends on whether or not we are running late for bed time. We make a stack by the rocking chair and she knows when they are done and she grabs her blankee and turns it to me to rock. I love how she never puts up a fight about it. Her favorite books are ones by Sandra Boynton, Karen Katz, and anything with flaps.
-Dora
-Getting her ouchies kissed - As I have said many times before, Lucy is tough as nails. It takes a major fall or something to get her crying. But all of the sudden, she wants any little bump kissed. Still no crying, but lots and lots of kisses, which is totally fine by me. Most of the time, the injuries are on her fingers or toes. Those are just the places she prefers the kisses. She says ouchie all of the time.
-The double doors that lead from our bedroom to the bathroom - This is totally random, but she can stay busy opening, closing, and going through these doors for over an hour. She normally has a little pile of stuff, and she moves it into the bathroom, shuts the doors, opens the doors, then moves it back into the bedroom. I am serious, this is one of her favorite activities. She does this while I get ready in the mornings.
-Our shower - We have a shower that has no door - you just walk in it. She sits at the opening when Justin or I am showering and pats around in the water and plays with the squeegee. She loves this.

We love you little one!











*As a quick note - I had several people ask me how I got only the flowers to stay blue and the rest of the picture black and white in a previous post. I use an online photo editing program to edit my pictures - www.picnik.com. It is great for the easy stuff. For that picture, I turned it black and white and then just played with the fade of the colors. Since the grass was all dead, the only color that picked up with a low fade was the blue in the flowers. I hope this helps.