18 Months

Happy One and a Half Years, Sweet Eleanor!!

This is you at 18 months:

Answer questions by nodding your head yes.

Love blueberries, blackberries, and oranges more than anything, but you're still an adventurous eater.

If Grayson is visiting, and eating breakfast, you want what he's eating (oatmeal with yogurt and applesauce)

Love to play in the big highchair, opening and closing the little door

Are pretty obedient if someone tells you no, but you will return to doing whatever it is after enough time has passed, hoping I've forgotten

Love to dance, and you do the motions for "If You're Happy and You Know It"

Exclaim "ooh!" when you see shoes

Are cuddly! You love to snuggle after your naps

Got 3 of your molars plus a front tooth all in the same week, and we're now up to a count of 11 teeth. For so long you only had teeth on the right side of your mouth.

Your hair grows quickly and hangs down in front of your eyes constantly because you pull your bows out. I look at all the other kids at church who have nicely tamed hair that grows down the back first. But - I refuse to take you for a hair cut because soon enough it will be long like your sister's hair (who always has a mess of a mane because headbands are her favorite, when I wish she would let me braid it).

You are a little food scavenger, always asking for a snack or hunting in the pantry for something

Your one sign is "please" and this is how you ask for anything and everything

Transitions are hard for you. You dislike the nursery at church on Sundays because there are a lot of disruptions, but you do better on Wednesdays at Bible study. If there is a man in the nursery, you're set. You will walk up to any man at church and ask him to pick you up.

Legos are your favorite toy. You can be sobbing, and we'll put you in front of your legos and starting building with you, and you quickly forget whatever made you unhappy.

You are very quiet. You don't say much, not even babbling. You observe all that is going on around you. You have a couple words, like Momma and Dadda and More, plus you know the sound a sheep makes (Baaa), and all other animals also say Baaa. You also have a full phrase, "There it is!"

Sometimes I find you putting your baby to bed, or rocking your baby to sleep.

You love to push the shopping cart around, and it's always interesting to see what you've tossed in there. You get SO frustrated when it gets stuck somewhere.

You like to turn the pages on books when we read, and you enjoy sitting in my lap while I read to you. You'll bring a book to me and sign Please, hoping that I'll sit down with you.

Stairs - you make a beeline for them anytime you see them.

If we are home in the morning, you'll take a morning nap, but you usually do okay if we skip it because we're out. You nap from 1:30 to 3:30ish most days.

You have a special affinity for Nonnie. She's the only one who gets real hugs.

You still ask us to put shoes on you, and you usually ask to change them multiple times in a 30 minute time span.

Just recently you've started trying to dress yourself, struggling to put pants on over the pants you're already wearing.

4 pairs of pants

Attracted to jewelry just like Big Sis.

Are back in cloth diapers, unless we're traveling or you have a stomach bug.

You had your first stomach bug this last week. You cuddled with your daddy all day on Sunday.

cuddling with Daddy when you had your stomach bug

We have to put a diaper on you immediately after your bath, or else you'll run out of the room and pee on the carpet, on purpose.

You are mischievous beyond all imagination sometimes. I got out of the shower one day to see you had grabbed the box of q-tips and dumped all of them out while playing in your pack-n-play. You also pull all of the tissues out of the box, wad them up, and blow your nose in them. You eat cottonballs and pull all the wipes out of the package. You leave a trail of toys behind you, but you're quick to help pick-up when we ask you to.

We love you to pieces, sweet girl!!!

making faces in the mirror with Daddy