21 Months and Then Some

 My little girl is growing up faster than I can keep up! I know it's been ages since I updated her little digital baby book here and she seems to be growing and learning so many new things each day.

I haven't weighed and measured her in a while but she is wearing size 18-24 months or 2T tops and size 12-18 or 18-24 months pants, right about average, I'd say.

The terrible twos seem to be starting a little early as she's pushing every limit she can. We've had daily fights about getting dressed and brushing teeth and sitting still for nap time and wearing bibs and putting on shoes and getting in the car and every little thing you can possibly imagine and it's driving me cRAZY! The good days are good but on the bad days it's all you can do to just get through it until her daddy gets home from work.  Yesterday was one of those days. She was in time out 3 times before she got dressed. And it didn't get much better from there. I was peed on, hit, kicked, scratched, swatted and had my glasses ripped from my face. Some while she was already in time out for a previous offense.  The odd thing is, she is SO smart! She knows better. She knows she's not allowed to hit or kick or pull the picture frames off the walls. You can tell her something one time and she'll remember it forever. She brings up that lotion doesn't go on her blankie every night at  pajama time- something I mentioned off hand ONCE. And yet every day she goes to time out for hitting or kicking, something she's been told a hundred times is unacceptable.  Asserting independence without self control is all I can figure out and I hope she grows out of it soon. She's so much more fun when she's being good.

When she's happy her little laugh is infectious. She'll giggle and squeal and chase you and kitties around the house. She's loved bouncing in what we call "The Colosseum" since the weather has been to crumby to go outside.

Her favorite activities are still reading books- she gets very excited about going to the library each week. Her favorite books are anything with Sesame Street, Winnie-the-Pooh, although she's terrified of Tigger, and the Llama Llama books by Anna Dewdney.  She has the Christmas one and we read it all the time plus we check one of the others out at the library almost every week. 

She also enjoys puzzles, coloring books, anything with buttons and has recently started really pretending. While cooking dinner one evening I came in the living room to check on her and found her very diligently arranging her Cookies on the tray and putting on her little oven mit to take them out of her pretend oven (aka the ottoman).  

Developmentally she's right on track. I'd been concerned about her lack of speech but she does enough and her main language is still signing. But in the past few weeks she's grown much more verbal. Although very few words are recognizable, in context you can usually tell what she's talking about. And she combines spoken "words" with signs and other sounds to form weird little sentences.   For example, the cat pooped on the twin bed in her room a week or so ago. Even just today, long after it'd been cleaned up and the bedding washed, Evie said, "Nnn-nah!" point to bed "pffft!" "Bah Bah!".  Which pretty clearly, at least to her mother, meant, "Anna pooped on the bed. Bad Kitty!"  Or another example, which her daddy will kill me for making public, on the swing set one nice afternoon. Evie was swinging when her daddy excused himself for a moment. She said, "Da-Da" Grabbed crotch Michael Jackson style- her sign for potty "Pfffft!!" Holds nose.  I believe that sweet little princess was saying, "Daddy went inside to go potty. He's stinky." 

Speaking of Potty... she's potty trained during waking hours. We are officially a 2 diaper per day family and it's great! She wears pull ups when we leave the house but at home or even playing in the yard it's big girl panties all the way. I'm very proud of her.  Of course, now that she's pushing all the limits she's been having accidents on purpose to test us and see if she can get away with it. It's very frustrating to all of us and hard to know how to handle.  You don't want to punish her for having an accident, if it truly was accidental. But I don't want her to think it's okay to pee or poo where ever she wants either. I've reminded her that she doesn't get treats if she doesn't use the potty and remind her every 30 minutes or so to go.  And we've been doing little reminders in between.  "Where to pee pees go? That's right, Pee Pees go in the potty, not your pants. " Etc. Again, I'm hoping she grows out of this little stage sooner rather than later.

Since my last update we celebrated Valentines day

got an insane amount of snow...

... Evie was not a fan.

Got dressed up for Mac's first birthday ball.

and visited the Tulsa Aquarium.

In only a few more months, she'll be 2. But she's still my little baby.