The 18th month

First of all, I confess, I'm terrible at this blogging thing.  Why did I think I could actually blog several times a week?!?!  I should know myself better than that.  So all my grandiose blogging plans have been put on the back burner at this time.  I am going to keep doing Adi updates for the fam and anyone else interested though.  

I must say that Adi's 18th month of life has been one of the most enjoyable and exciting for me.  Though the first few weeks involved a good bit of top molar teething fussiness and general trying "toddlerness," I still say it's been a great month.  She is hard to discipline when she doesn't feel good but I found out that even though she doesn't seem very responsive to it when she is feeling bad, she's still getting the message.  I tried to be more understanding and patient, while still holding the line though.  So the week or two that she was actually not having teething pain after those trying weeks, she was such a joy to train and work with.  She knew what was expected and I just had to threaten "crib time" (her current punishment for fits, whining and bad attitudes) and she would straighten up.  That was so awesome!  She is becoming so playful and communication is getting better all the time too, though I still can't wait til she can straight out tell me what she wants!!


A few cool little milestones that have happened: 

She started saying "Thank You!"  It comes out like "daydew" but you can definitely tell it's thank you.  She has also gotten better about saying "please" when she wants something.  That sounds like "deace." 

She is rockin' the spoon now.  She can eat soup, oatmeal, and most other things that require a spoon pretty well, though it is still a very messy business.  And she's pretty good with her fork.  She has a fetish (as do Mike and I) for hummus and has become quite the double dipper.  She likes to dip her carrot in the hummus, lick it off and get more hummus.  After four or five double dips she may finally decide to take an actual bite of the carrot. 

Adi also learned to blow her nose.  Goodbye blue suction thing (what are those called?).  Just in time for the ones we've had since she was born to start really stinking inside as we were totally disgusted to find out last month when she had a cold.

We were at some friends house in San Antonio for the weekend and their daughter gave Adi a little stuffed pig and a baby doll's bottle.  She quickly became attached to and starting mothering that pig like I've never seen her do.  She would feed the pig the bottle, hold the pig to her chest and go, "sh sh sh sh sh."  Talk about the mothering instinct being innate, b/c I don't know where she would have seen that unless she just remembers me doing it to her when she was tiny!  Oh, and we can't forget the beads.  She has these little silver beads that she loves to wear around her neck or put around the pig's neck.  And she enjoys looking at clothes in the store.  She'll carry a dress on a hanger all around the store and put it up to her to see if it fits and how it looks.  She's 101% girl!!

She has also figured out her shape ball.  All of a sudden one day the color and shape connection just clicked in and she doesn't really need my help to play with that toy anymore, other than to get the shapes out of the ball. 

Now that the weather is nice, she has learned how to say "go outside."  Though it sounds like "gice?"  She says with a question when she wants to go outside.  And then when she's done, she will come back in and close the door behind her.  And she's figured out how to open the screen door to the back which is nice b/c I just leave it open and she can come and go as she pleases.  Today, I was in the kitchen and I thought she was watching the movie in the living room.  I heard the grass rustling in the backyard and looked to see if someone was in our yard.  I didn't see anything so I assumed it was someone walking in the grass in the yard behind our house.  A few minutes later I hear Adi step in and close the screen door behind her.  She had been running around out there and I didni't even hear or see her open the back door!! 

It's been a fun month!