Shoe size?  A 4 or 4.5 (if they made 1/2s for her age)

Weight?  20 lbs on OUR home scale, which may be a few lbs off (as in, add a few lbs).  PS – we like our scale as it is.

How many teeth?  Look for yourself.  We don’t really wish to stick our hands in there, thanks.

Height?  This high.

Favorite drink?  “Juice” – but we call everything juice.  Her FAVORITE is pretty much any kind of fruit juice (watered down).

Favorite Food?  Macaroni and cheese, pizza rolls, breads and rolls, cheeseburgers (but they can’t have anything hanging off or she picks it off and makes you eat it), blueberries, blackberries, raspberries, bananas, and pasta

Biggest hurdle right now?  The “fussy tantrums” that come and go – and, we’re not really sure what causes them unless it’s just the age/stage she’s in.  As far as tantrums go, these are pretty light.

Soon, we’ll have to face your car seat forward, but I’m trying to buy as much time as I can.  Like me, you weigh less than “normal” for your age group – you’re just naturally small.  And while others have been pressuring me to make the change NOW (as of a couple of months ago), I’m not really ready.  I don’t feel the rush because I know you are ultimately safer where you are – although it will have to be soon since your feet are beginning to touch the back of the seat.

You adapt really well to social changes and I love watching and observing you – whether you’re playing solo or with others.  You adore other children and have even began using the word “kid” (with the d dropped off) to describe non-babies.  In your world, anyone under 12 is a “baby” and you wouldn’t have it any other way.  You love “babies.”  You still take time to warm up to adults you don’t really know (which could be a good thing), but will jump in with playing with other kids.  While playing, you seem so very focused on making your playmate happy, giving him or her whatever toys you can find, even if it means you don’t really get to play with them.  And, when it comes to PDA with the other kids, you don’t hold back.  Hugs and kisses and holding hands isn’t something you have to think twice about, even if they are a little less than willing to hold your hand back.

Your imagination inspires me.  Since you were 6 months old, your imagination has been brilliant.  At 6 months, we taught you about “Peter Pan food (imaginary food)” to keep you quiet during church, and you would pretend to feed us and yourself this delicacy.  Now, you pretend to fly, bending your elbows and “soaring.”  You pretend to drive cars, whether it’s a grown up car and your in someone’s lap at the steering wheel in the parking lot or you’re playing with your toy car, making all of the car noises as it drives.  You still love peter pan food, and have even adopted invisible body care and styling products.  A tube or bottle of anything can immediately become a bottle of drink-stuff, shampoo, body lotion, soap, or hair gel – and you don’t mind sharing that either.  And, sometimes it’s like you hear music that nobody else can and you just cant help but break out in dance and/or song.  Like today as we showered, and I bent down to give you eskimo kisses, but instead you picked up both of my hands and proceeded to dance.  So, together we danced in the shower and together, we sang songs and then clapped for ourselves at the end.

You’ve gotten really good at sticking up for yourself, too.  Sometimes the new puppy really frustrates you, and you lose your cool and freak out a bit, but for the most part you will put your “mad” face on and say “No no no!”  You are like my little puppy police, my extra set of eyes always watching should Chance try to sneak off with a shoe or grab something out of the laundry basket to chew and make holey.  You’ve gotten the courage to walk up to him and take whatever it is away swiftly, and generally without him knowing what just happened.

Right now, we’re trying to teach you about emotions.  I know that this is a really difficult time and stage because you feel so many things, and words fail you.  We’re trying to teach you to breathe and concentrate through things (like when we tell you to “work it out” and those words help you focus), and we’re trying to teach you to identify different emotions.  So far, we’ve practiced the “mad face,” “sad face,” and “crazy face.”  Your mad face is mostly a glare and technically you really only use it when you’re trying to make us laugh.  Your sad face will most likely win you whatever you want from your father, you totally have him wrapped around your pinky finger.  And, the crazy face?  That’s just what mommy looks like by the end of the day.  You might be able to talk yourself out of a few meetings when you’re older with that face, though.  You know how to associate those faces with the words “mad, crazy, and sad” and we try to help label your feelings as you have them.  You don’t completely *get* it, right now, but you’re not even 2 yet and most adults can’t even identify their feelings so it’s really not a big deal.

You’re really big into copying everything right now, too.  If I’m reading, you want to read.  If I’m doing crafts, you want to help.  If we’re cooking, you want to either eat or help cook.  Unfortunately you still lack the skills to do exactly what we are doing most of the time, but you seem pretty happy with the simplified versions that we introduce you to.  You seem to also have a long attention span when you’re really interested in something and nobody is calling you away.

You like affection, and you seem pretty confident in knowing that it’s here whenever you need it.  Sometimes you’ll give kisses and hugs because we ask for them, or you sense we need them, and other times you would rather run around the room than be tied down to one spot for more than a moment.  Yelling and raising of voices seems to make you nervous.  You are used to stern “no’s,” but when someone raises their voice to you repeatedly, you get agitated and it’s like you have a bit of a freak out.  You no longer know what to do and it takes a while to calm you down.

As much as you adore getting dirty and playing with things like paint, markers, play dough, etc – you HATE having things on your hands when you decide you’re done.  We’ve always offered a clean towel to you to wipe your hands and mouth on whie eating, but I’m not sure if we taught you this or if this is just you.  You show us your fingers and hands when a piece of banana that you peeled sticks to you or when there’s leftover mac and cheese goo on your hands, and we have about .5 seconds to help you remove it or you whine.  Actually, you’ll try to get it off yourself first if we have a towel around, but if not you’ll ask us to help.

You’re still fairly obsessed with shoes, no matter the style or size.  You adore shoes and you own more than I do.  A couple of days ago, as you sat with nothing more than a shirt on during a diaper changing, you requested that your black maryjanes be put on.  You love them that much…shoes in general, that is.

You’ve also gotten somewhat used to only getting your blankie during naptime and bedtime which has dramatically reduced the amount of time you suck your thumb.  You have begun asking for toys to go into bed with you, though.  Generally, you want a book (we allow you the ones with real pages, now), a doll, and one other type of toy.  One week, you would get upset if the shape sorting toy didn’t go EVERYWHERE you went.  It’s like you were intent on figuring that thing out, although it’s kind of above your age level, and may take a while longer.

Speaking of toys, you’re currently working on throwing balls.  Unfortunately, your father kind of taught you to throw other types of toys by accident, and we are trying to unlearn you of that one.  So, we’re trying to teach you to throw balls TO people and not at them…and to throw in front of you rather than behind.  Sometimes you do, sometimes you don’t…but it’s always fun to watch you try.   Also, you’ve finally figured the crayon thing out…you finally learned how to apply enough pressure to make them noticeable.  Stickers are still a favorite with you, you love sticking them all over the place.

What else?  Bath time has gone back to us having to apply the body wash (diluted) to you, otherwise you tend to try to wash your face and apparently an eyeful of organic body wash is a bit painful.  Yet, you do it every time.   You also have a thing for novel-sized books.  You have no clue what they say (that’s just me guessing), but you LOVE holding them open and “reading” to yourself.  Sometimes you actually will throw down an age appropriate colorful picture book for a novel with nothing but text.  It’s weird but endearing.

Welcome back!