End of the Summer Fun

I'm about to put Maddox down for a nap but I thought first I'd try to see if her hair could go up in pig tails. The top is still so short so it doesn't look quite right, but the back view is adorable! it looks like she has bangs from her forehead to about 3 inches back off her forehead. Sort of a mullet look. I can't wait until that top stuff grows out too. ----- and in the 30 seconds it took me to type these previous sentences she pulled one out. She never leaves anything in her hair anymore unless she's highly distracted from it being there. She was trying on last year's Chiefs jersey to see if it fit in preparation for going to Baltimore for the season opener in a couple of weeks. Still fits. Maybe if I put her hair in pig tails for the game people won't say what a cute little boy she is like they did last year.Grady came over for a bit the other night so I blew up 2 beach balls for them to play with. Guess who's hiding at the other end of this curtain? Peekaboo!

This is how she goes to bed every night now. I read her a couple books and of course she wants more so I give her one in bed. She'll lay there in the dark for at least 20 minutes reading, babbling and fall asleep with the book firmly in her grasp. It's also there for the morning when she wakes up so she's happy for another 20-30 minutes without waking me up yet! Yesterday our church had a picnic out at Tanglewood Park with inflatable jumpers, car show, volleyball, playground, music, and food. We headed out for the last mid 80s day, at least for this week. Today it's a high of 65, 20 degrees colder than yesterday!

First we went to the pool.I told Daddy to hold her hand as she got up to the chest deep water but he refused saying she was fine. She wants to hold someone's hand, she knows she's wobbly. 3 seconds later she was completely underwater. We grabbed her fast and she ws surprised and frightened, but fine!Now Dad will hold her hand, point proven. Maddox and Dad both crying because they blew the whistle for the hourly sit-out time.

Trying her best to do something interesting and fun with these goggles.

She's trying to grab my tongue while sticking out hers. Finally figured out what to do with those goggles:

The inflatables were only for kids over 3 which Maddox was not happy about. But once we showed her the playground with the huge sandbox she was content and would have been for hours.Before we left I took up her to the top of one of the slides so I could let her try it just once. The rules were right, there's no way a 1 yr old could have done that by herself! WAY too squishy! She did have a big grin on by the bottom of the slide.Video of Maddox and Grady dancing and playing:

In other news, she has all 16 of her teeth as of last week. The top two canines have just the tip sticking out, but they're there. No more teeth until 2 yr molars!! And she's feeding herself about most of the meals that I give her. I just have to try not to look to much or I take it away and do it myself. But she's not too bad at it. She just has some problems scooping up the more difficult things which I hold her hand and scoop for her and she feeds herself. But she can spoon up the easier things by herself. But last week she picked up her big girl cup of milk and tipped it too much and spilled it (which she's usually successful at) and now won't even try. She picks it up and hands it to me with a whine. She was pretty upset about the spilt milk even though I kept saying "it's okay, it's okay, we can clean it up." I can hear you all doling out your advice as I type . . . Don't cry over spilt milk! It's true!

She's saying some new words if I ask her to repeat after me. I'm glad that she finally feels like she can try to copy me and isn't so unsure about it. Today I told her where the toilet was so I could teach her about that object and I said pee pee goes in it. Can you say pee pee? She said "pee pee" in her cute little high voice. I said can you say poop? She said "poop". She's attempting some words today anyway!

18 months old!

Maddox turned 18 months old a little over a week ago. It's hard to believe my little girl is 1 1/2 years old! But time does move on doesn't it? She went to the doctor a couple days ago for her check up and shots. She's still in the 90%ile for height and about 10%ile for weight. She weighs only 20 lbs and 6 oz., a half a pound more than she did at 15 months. She got her hemaglobin checked again and her iron is fine now so she'll start taking just normal daily vitamins. She popped her second lower canine through a couple of days ago and the top two canines are working hard at doing the same. She has good days and bad days regarding that, but really hates it when I brush her upper teeth.

She's starting to use words regularly now and repeating new words sometimes. Tonight she went to the garage and pointed to and asked for "ball?", asked me to take off her "shoe?" (always with a question sound to it) by lifting her foot up to me, uses the words with the the sign language for "mo" (more) and "peas" (please). She'll point to and say "eye" "ear" "ose" (nose) "knee" "aaa" for mouth, and "oo" for foot. She likes the vowels much more than the consanants. She still loves to go to her room, close the door, and read to herself. She also loves to play on her toddler slide in the yard, or the neighbors. she can go up and down all by herself and loves the attention when we watch and applaud.

About a month ago she easily gave up her pacie at night. We had been reading a book for a couple of months about no more pacies, so one night I just took hers out and hid it behind me and she didn't look for it. So I put her to bed and she fussed a little but never even really cried. It wasn't that important to me so I said if she really cried I'd give it back and try later. But she went to sleep after about 10 min. of whining and that was that. No more problems after that one night! I still give it to her at nap time because we have much less consistentcy in that. Sometimes here, sometimes at the Bacons. She needs that to make her feel comfortable and I know that time will be harder for her. But I might try after our trip to Baltimore, before Thanksgiving. That'll give me a couple of months. Again, not really important to me. And if it means she doesn't cry in the car on long trips, she can have it!

I really don't have many pictures. We haven't done many exciting things lately that warranted taking the camera with us. We watched Grady a couple of days this week so they got to play a lot. One day she was sitting on the couch (which she can finally get up on on her own) reading and I guess he wanted to do that too. So he crawled up and sat in her lap. I don't think that's what she had in mind.

So I put them each in their own spot to read and they were content for a bit.Well, until something more exciting happens . . . I'm off for a quiet movie night with myself! i don't have to worry about Jeremy falling asleep during my rental for once since he's at work until 11!