19 Month Update

Our little girl is 19 months old and barely any baby is left in her. She is bigger, stronger, smarter and more independent each day. Just as I marvel at a skill she has mastered or a funny thing she's started doing she is on to the next. It breaks my heart and makes my day. This being a mom thing is one crazy ride. Here is a snippet of 19 month old Charly (in usual bullet form, of course).

-She sleeps great! We FINALLY have a routine (that seems to be sticking!) where she goes down easily on her own, hardly ever wakes up in the night (and when she does she usually puts herself back to sleep) and still naps well. She wakes up between 5:30 and 6:30 every morning, which is sucky, but we'll take early mornings with a full nights sleep any day.

-She loves Dora and Diego. Remember how she wakes up super early? Yeah, she definitely watches tv every morning cause we aren't ready to be awake yet. If I'm out running Matt snoozes on the couch while she watches, and if I'm not then I snooze on the couch while she watches. It works for us. Don't judge.

-She has been playing independently really well. This is fabulous.

-Still loves her babies. She feeds them, changes their diapers, burps them (complete with sound effects) and puts them down for naps.

-She is all about saying her prayers now. It is cute how she reminds us as soon as we finish brushing her teeth. We couldn't resist recording it.

17 months

I can confidently say that I love Charly more today than ever. She is a full blown toddler, which means temper tantrums and a defiant streak, but watching her grow has been the single coolest thing I've ever done. Having a toddler is hard sometimes but fun most of the time. I loved my sweet baby, who always wanted to snuggle and slept in my arms, but I love the person that Charly is. She has a twinkle in her eye and an impish grin when she's teasing or making mischief. She loves to make people laugh. She is adventurous and fiercely independent. She has a stellar memory for people and words. She loves books like nobody's business. Her personality is huge.

She's been learning so many new things lately. We took a couple of videos to try to document a little part of Charly's new skills, and, you know, to show off and impress the grandparents and stuff:)

15 Months

Charly is one funny girl. As she gets older we've seen this come out more and more. She will tease us, make funny faces, or just make herself laugh. She is quite the ham. She is a smart little cookie too. Her vocabulary is ever growing. She doesn't quite have the language skills to make all the right sounds, but we understand her and that's what counts. She stills love books and wants us to read them non-stop. Which is good, but sometimes you can't get the thoughts "if I have to read the foot book one more time I'm going to jump out the window" out of your head. With all the good of turning into a little toddler also comes the bad. The temper tantrums and whining are also more common now. But enough rambling from me, I will let Charly do the rest of the talking on this post!

On the Hunt

This year we are part of a CSA at a nearby farm, which means each week this summer we'll get produce straight from the farm, and also that we get to attend all the festivals they have throughout the year. I am pretty excited that once a week Charly and I will get out and get some fresh air, visit the animals, and even pick some of our own food. Saturday was the first festival of the year- the annual Egg Hunt and Peep Harvest. We took Charly and had a great time!

We got there early to visit the animals, since Charly is pretty much obsessed with animals right now. "Aaaaaamal. Aaamal."

The horse was first. I can't seem to get her to say horse... every time I give a coaxing "say horse!" she responds with "Neeeeiiigh!". Adorable, yes. I think so.

Ducks were next. "Wakwakwak."

Then the chickens. One of them mistook her finger for a worm. Mean ol' chicken.

I'm starting to see a pattern...

The other day while Charly was taking a bath we got out these cute bunny hand puppet washcloths that I was given at a baby shower. I put them on Charly's hands and she thought it was great.

The past couple of days I've found her doing things like this:

Something tells me she really liked this whole hand puppet thing.

Mullet No More

Here is evidence of Charly's first (ok, second) haircut. I say second because I trimmed Charly's bangs a while back and shared it in this post. And whoa, those bangs were short. Thank you everyone for not ridiculing me for that one! It was time for another trim of the bangs, but her hair was starting to look pretty mullet-y, too, so a full blown haircut was in order.

Beans, Beans

I'm trying to make an effort to plan more activities that are age appropriate and encourage development for my toddler. She does a great job of playing by herself or bringing me books to read, so I have to remind myself to plan other activities to help her learn and grow. I remembered seeing this activity a few times before so I thought I'd give it a try. Charly has been very interested in putting things inside of other things lately. She'll put toys in a basket and carry it around, or take things out and put them back again. I knew she would enjoy being able to scoop the beans and pour them into another bowl, cup, or spoon. What I didn't anticipate is that she would carefully remove one bean from her scoop at a time and place it in the larger bowl!

I also didn't anticipate that her 3 and 6 year old friends would be so interested in a bowl of beans, too. Apparently beans + spoons + measuring cups + tupperware = a really good time for everyone. 

I've seen versions of this sensory activity all over the web, so I'm not sure where to credit it to. Just know that it was not my idea and I don't take credit- I just enjoyed doing it with my toddler and wanted to share! 

Asleep at the wheel

It took us quite some time to really get on a good routine with sleep and naps, but now that we have, it seems like 12pm hits and Charly might as well turn in to a pumpkin. It doesn't matter what she is doing, her body knows it is time to nap and she crashes- hard. Like just the other day, this happened at 12:02:

We managed to get the video camera out, but not in time to capture the hilarious part where she would wake up a little bit, giggle, then slowly drift back to sleep. Still, this is pretty funny:

Sweet dreams, little girl. 

13 Months

On Valentines Day (over a week ago- I know) Charly turned 13 months! I wasn't sure if I would continue my monthly updates, but the past week has been crazy in the development department for my little dear, and monthly updates have been a good way thus far to document the fun things she does. Since I'm not so good at scrapbooking or keeping a baby book, keeping up the monthly updates on the blog is pretty much the only way I am documenting her childhood. So I'll keep em going.