16 Months!

Just realized I never finished this and so it has been sitting as a draft, waiting to be published.  Totally late but at least it's on my blog for my record! However, if you compare it with her 18 month update you can see that a lot is still the same!

Another month has gone by and my baby girl is growing up way too fast!  Here are some of her favorite things to do right now:
1.  Read books. She likes to flip through them and yell and exclaim in excitement as she "reads" them.
2.  Put lids on and take them off. She LOVES this right now.  An empty spice bottle and it's lid is her favorite toy right now!  She also likes to put the lid to her blocks on and off because it is a bit easier than most lids we come in contact with.
3.  Walking anywhere.  She has decided that she's too big for the shopping cart and so it's a challenge to go grocery shopping now.  Even buckled in she will manage to stand up and lunge towards me.  Hobby Lobby is pretty much off limits now that she refuses to stay in the cart.
4.  Climbing.  She learned how to climb on the kitchen chairs which we're having to teach her not to do until she gets that she can't climb the backs of them!  She really enjoys climbing on top of the ottoman and proudly standing up.  Also jumping into my arms from the ottoman.
5.  Helping mommy clean!  She is so good at bringing me things that don't belong on the floor.  She also responds to my instructions to clean up the messes she makes.  She emptied a drawer in the kitchen and when she ran off to play somewhere else I asked her to come back and put everything back, and she did.  She is so willing to please mom right now and I am soaking in every minute of it before she learns the word "no".  She also likes to wipe everything down with a rag to clean it.  And absolutely HAS to throw her own diaper away.  I get screamed at if I try to take it to the trash myself.
6.  Morning snuggles with mommy and daddy.  Every morning.  It is our favorite time of day.  She usually wakes up a little before Jackson has to be up for work and so when it's time for him to get up we go in and snuggle as a family.  The other day I thought maybe she just wanted daddy time so I left her with Jackson and went back to cleaning the kitchen.  Next thing I know she has walked out to me and wants me to come back.  So I did.  Morning snuggles are the best.
7.  Eating with a spoon or fork.  She refuses to eat her food without a spoon or fork.  She's still getting the hang of it but practice makes perfect!  She's an independent eater now, if I see she is struggling to eat with a spoon I have to trick her into letting me help her.
8.  Putting things in and out of bowls, boxes, baskets, etc.  She loves to dump her blocks out and put them back in one by one.  Recently I also gave her a bowl of dry oatmeal in a bowl with a measuring cup and she loved scooping it in and out of the bowl.  Kept her entertained for half an hour!
9.  Eating.  Anything. She eats prefers vegetables and fruits over anything. She often eats more green beans during dinner than I do!
10.  Bath time!  So fun.
11.  Bubbles!
12.  Snuggles with Teddy.  How she loves her teddy bear! When she gives Teddy kisses it looks like she's violently banging heads with him.  I laugh every time.
13.  Giggling.  She's just as happy as she's always been.  She's turning into more of a silly toddler every day, making funny noises and faces and doing funny things.  She loves to make us laugh.
14.  Swinging.  No matter how high I push her she is brave enough to let go of her hold on the swing and sign "more" while saying "more, more, more".

18 Months!

Harmony turned 18 months on February 15.  I thought I'd record a bit of her personality and development thus far.

Knows about 45-50 words.  The ones I hear most often are "wa-wa, teddy, baby, me-me (binkie, I have no idea where she got that from), and dog.  My favorite word she says is "yes" because she says it with such enthusiasm and also with a lisp.  It's super cute.  She barely started saying no and it came after a couple of weeks of shaking her head no, she actually says "oh" and so far is very polite about it. She also says "bless you" when you sneeze.

Favorite Foods:  bread, cookoo (cookie - which is used loosely, it could be crackers, granola bars, cookies, cake, or really any dessert), mandarin oranges, green beans, strawberries, chocolate, bananas, avocados, applesauce.  Recently she has come to the conclusion she can live off of just bread (which is also used looslely - muffins, tortillas, bread, bagels, etc) and applesauce.  We'll see how long that lasts.

Least favorite foods: Spaghetti. Juice.

Loves :

DANCING!  She will start dancing to the tiniest beat she hears.  It is so fun.

Storytime!  We read books multiple times a day and she has become very interactive with them.  She points to pictures she recognizes and says the word, she does motions, has a few practically memorized...

Playing "I Spy the Baby".  She will find one anywhere we go, and she considers babies to be anyone between 0 and 3 years old.

Pulling anything off of the counters or table that she can reach.

Pushing her stroller and shopping cart.

Playing with daddy!  She has become a daddy's girl and is crying out for him a lot during the day or night when she wakes up.  I have to tell her all the time "daddy is at work" or "daddy is sleeping" and lots of times we have woken daddy up to calm her down.

Testing her balance, reach and jumping distance

Dogs!

That is a dog underneath her and she is using her favorite pillow -teddy.

Baths!

Usually baths are "no binkie" zones but she had a terrible diaper rash and had just been through a super painful diaper change so I let her keep it.  I also used this as an opportune "First bubble bath" which she loved.  Am I a bad mom for not giving her a bubble bath sooner?  

Being outside.

Going down slides!  It might be tied with swinging now as her favorite activity.

Dislikes:

Getting messy!  She only recently started picking up handfuls of dirt.  Even then she often comes over to me with hands outstretched for me to clean her off.  She is such a girl.

Having to share the piano with mommy.

The vacuum.  She runs from it and hides in another room.  The rare occasions she is brave enough to approach it she roars at it.

Some phases she's going through:

Right now in order to go to sleep she has to have her teddy, baby, puppy (which is almost as big as she is), binkie, and water.  She will list them all off each time she goes down to make sure i didn't forget one.  She also has recently decided that Teddy, Baby, and Puppy need to go everywhere with her.  We were getting ready to walk out the door to go to church on Sunday and she comes running out of her room trying to carry all 3 with her out the door.

Everybody else's food and sippy cup is always better than hers.  In fact any sippy cup other than the one she is supposed to be using is better.  She will constantly request a new one (which doesn't make her very happy when mommy says no)

Everything is a telephone and she loves talking on it.

She loves wearing mommy's shoes, carrying purses, wearing jewelry, putting on makeup and brushing her hair.  (Do you think she watches me just a little?!)

Wearing mommy's shoe

Animal sounds she's mastered:  dogs, cows, ducks, monkeys, anything that roars (this includes vacuums).

Last we checked she weighted 28.5 lbs and is wearing 2T clothes.  95th percentile for height.  She's a joy to be around and has really developed a sense of humor recently as she often does things that she knows will make us laugh.  She truly is a ray of sunshine in our lives!

Some days.

There are some days as a mother when you just survive.  This means that you stack the dishes higher and higher and shove them out of the way to make room for new ones because today, feeding your family 3 meals in and of itself deserves a gold medal. .  This means resisting the urge to curse when you trip over yet another shoe that has been carried into the kitchen.  This means leaving the room to take some deep breaths after realizing you are yelling, "no, no, nooooo" as your 18 month old stares up at you with her hands in the air after having pulled a bag of animal crackers off of the counter and dumping it all over the floor in the midst of all parts of dinner getting done at the same time.  This coming the same week that she has dumped out the cornmeal, cracked a bottle of chili sauce, and dumped a newly opened bag of pretzels all over the floor.  The same night that you have just about had a heart attack because while you turned your head one way she climbed into the bottom kitchen drawer, and is now standing with her hands on the counter right next to a hot burner.  Or earlier today when she is being unusually quiet and you find her standing on the dishwasher door perfectly able to reach the knives on the counter that are usually out of reach.  You quickly have to change your entire baby proof mentality as counters and tables are no longer safe zones.  And one mess after another teaches you that.

A day of surviving comes after your child went to bed 2 hours late, was up for an hour in the middle of the night, and woke up an hour early.  All you want is a nap but all chances for that are lost because during your child's one nap that day, she can't seem to sleep without being held.  You have work that is overdue.  You have 4 loads of unfolded laundry, 2 of which have now been scattered across the living room floor.  You forgot about the 2lbs. of chicken on the counter and left it out for 2 hours.  In between the cries and the tantrums and the discomfort of teething and the 3 dirty diapers and the 3 shirt changes that are so soaked in drool you keep searching for an alternate explanation for their wetness and the nose wipes that pull obscenely long strands of snot from your child's nose... in between all of this and the constant requests for binky, teddy, baby, puppy, and water, you make a valiant effort to clean your child's room a bit.  You put away the blocks and then wonder why you even bother when by the time you've counted to 5 they are dumped out again.  

But then there are moments of light.  Like when your toddler puts a bucket over her head and runs around giggling and running into you because she can't see.  Or when she brings you book after book to read to her while snuggling on the couch.  Or when 6:30 comes and you are at your breaking point but your husband is working late just like every night that week so you cry for a couple of minutes because you are exhausted and overworked and have been screamed at a LOT that day and you know that you have to stick it out for 3 more hours until your child is hopefully asleep and after getting a 2 minute cry in you ask your child for a hug and she willingly leans in to give you one.  

So you hang on to the hug and the giggles and the occasional snuggles to get you through the rest of the day.  And you hope that tomorrow you can live a little instead of just survive.