22 Months

Somehow months 20 and 21 passed right by... oh I know, it was because I've been watching an infant three days a week, training for a marathon, and pregnant. Ok, so the marathon training ended when I found out I was pregnant, but to be fair there were about 7 weeks of overlap where I was pretty darn tired (wonder why!) so I feel like that is excuse enough to have missed a few monthly updates for my dear Charly. Unfortunately, she's changed a TON, so I have a lot to catch up on. I just went back and re-read the 19 month post so I could remember where we left off... oh boy. Things have changed.

Hipster baby? Yeah, she might as well be 16 already.

Probably the biggest change is in her speech. This girl is crazy verbal. I'm talking, full blown sentences, talking all day, describing the world around her, funny, with pretty darn good pronunciation. Her comprehension is right up there too, so she'll tell me about all sorts of things all day long. She confuses some pronouns, but she includes them still which I think is pretty good. She includes a lot of articles too. Just to give you an idea, she'll say things like "Mama we need to go to market (Target)." "I want to play outside at the playground." "It was kind of a little bit scary, but it ok now." Yeah. Those kind of sentences. I took some video, but be warned, it is literally many minutes of us just talking. She says some cute stuff, but still, it is 7 minutes. Basically if you are anyone but my mom I totally understand if you don't want to watch it.

She has a distinct sense of humor and will tell us when things are funny or silly.

She knows how to count to 13 by herself- except she skips four every time. I'm not sure where she learned this, because I don't remember teaching her. TV, maybe?

She spends most of her play time doing role playing and imaginary play. She has a few favorite small toy animals or dolls (which rotate in and out of her favorites pile) that she plays with all the time. She takes care of them, reads to them, puts them to bed, has them talking to each other, and feeds them. It is both hilarious and adorable to watch. She also likes to dress up with our cold weather hats, gloves, and scarves, and she still loves books.

Speaking of books... this girl has a crazy memory for books. There are probably about half of her books that we can read to her, and at any given point in the book if we stop she'll be able to tell us the next word or phrase. This week we checked a few books out at the library, and after having read a few of them 5 or so times each, she can literally turn the pages and repeat at least a word, but most of the time a complete phrase or sentence on that page. Last night I was on the phone sitting next to her and heard her "reading" a book about Christmas, including lines like "I have to be SO patient." (in reference to waiting in line to see Santa). It blows me away and has me completely scared at the same time. Here is a video of her "reading" her animal ABC book.

Songs are another thing she is really in to right now. She's learned a lot of primary songs from her church nursery class and we hear her singing bits and pieces of ones we've never sung at home before. A few weeks ago she was running around the house saying "I'll be sunbeam for Him!" from the song Jesus wants me for a Sunbeam. She knows actions to some of them too. One song she learned from listening to at home is called Baby Beluga. She loves singing this one and changing it from "Baaaby Beluuuuuuga" to "Baaaaby Beluuuuugog. Baaaaby Beluuuuuugoo." Then she has a laughing fit at how funny she is. Here are a few videos of her singing songs.

She's started her terrible two tantrums. They are not fun. Multiple times every day she'll have a crying meltdown over some insignificant thing that I may or may not be aware of. The worst part is that she doesn't fully understand reason yet, so "Charly, I know you want a fruit snack right now but we don't have any in the car" is no consolation. Parenting toddlers would be so much easier if they DID understand reason.

Charly is obsessed with every character we introduce her to. She knows a ton of old school Disney characters from coloring books and talks about them all the time. Peter Pan is one of her favorites, along with Pongo and Perdita from 101 Dalmations. Walking through the kids section of any store is a joke because she is just shouting the whole time- "There Cinderella! There Alice! I see Minnie!"

Charly's eating habits have been a point of contention lately. She won't eat any vegetables, won't try most new things, and even stopped eating some old stand by foods that she used to love. It is making me absolutely crazy. At least she'll still eat fruit. And actually she does like meat and eggs, so I shouldn't complain too much. It is mostly the veggie thing. Maybe she'll grow out of it? Let's hope.

At least she still likes dessert!

We recently bought Charly a toddler bed off of Craigslist in preparation for a new baby coming, and she was so excited about her "big girl bed" that we went ahead and started putting her in it already. She transitioned really easily and doesn't get out and play or anything. She fell out once the first night and since then she's stayed in her bed just fine all through the night. I'm thanking my lucky stars for that win.



Loving her "big girl bed"

She is changing in a million ways every day, but this post is already long enough, so let's photo dump, shall we?

The Fairy Princess on Halloween

She loves to sweep! 

Just relaxin. 

First night in a hotel! Just try and take a picture of a 4 year old, a toddler and an infant on a bed. Not easy.

The rest of these photos are courtesy of Matt's Iphone

8 teeth at once

Running around at the Naval Academy in Annapolis

Riding the carousel at the mall

"I'm flying!"

A fierce leaf warrior

her silly face 

She takes time to stop and smell the flowers... everywhere we go. 

a little fairy

So pensive. On the docks in Annapolis

You made it, hooray! Gold star for making it to the end of this post!