Finally...!

18 and 19 months! 

Stats: 16 teeth, 1 trip to the dentist, 22 lbs, and up to the 25th percentile for height!  

Two months later and just now updating!
Annie has continued to just blossom in understanding and personality. Her vocabulary is exploding! We finally had her 18 month appointment a week ago and they asked us how many words she says... so while we were waiting between the med student and the attending, we started writing them down.  We counted over 50 that we could remember!  (Yes, that includes names and animal sounds, but I think those count)  Some of the most recent ones are outside, giraffe, bunny, monkey, and poop.  Annie now talks all the time about Papa--which seems to be her catchall name for any grandparent or even her uncles.  She also asks for Eena (Xena) and Cha-lee. 

In the last week and a half, we have started putting her to bed without staying in the room to pat her until she is asleep.  She's down to about 30 seconds to 2 minutes of crying and then goes to sleep!  It has revolutionized our evenings.  Hence the free moment to sit and write a blog post. :)  The only time she sits still anymore is when she's sleeping.   We have also banished the binky other than night and naps (since this photo was taken).  She's done well with it!  This coincided with the same time that she figured out how to ask for the binky, but she's usually still able to be distracted.

The tantrums are more frequent than I would like, but usually short lived.  The worst ones are when we're somewhere with a tile floor or in the parking lot, places where she naturally wants to throw herself down and throw her head back. Oy.

We've been lucky to have visits from both sets of grandparents for additional working weekends, and Annie has really enjoyed all the company.  She and I also went home for Labor Day weekend and had a nice visit down there. We got to see all Annie's aunts and uncles in addition to the grandparents.  Tony and Jenny had a fun surprise waiting--a red wagon with two seats (and cupholders!)  Annie and Charlie had fun riding in the wagon around the block and down to the beach, with Grandma Gigi rapping Humpty Dumpty on the way.  Annie got a big kick out of the hand motions for that one.


She LOVES to do the motions to different songs, and she either does song motions or signs when she says a lot of things.  The most noticeable is when she says baby and signs it, or when she says bird and does a chicken dance hand motion. 

She is also particularly enjoying football season and being able to freely yell Go Gators! complete with a chomp at every opportunity.  In restaurants, in Target, at church... everywhere.

Annie now "reads" out loud when she sits down with a book, turning the pages, and talking/humming in a sing song voice. 

My personal favorite for her is The Little Engine that Could--she is fixated on the sadness of the dolls when the freight train turns them down, and she turns all the way through until she finds it. Then she puts her hands up to her eyes for the crying. Hilarious.

Annie is now sitting in a booster seat for meals, and she likes to sit with us at the big table. She had been asking to sit in the big chairs, and she still likes to climb up in those chairs, too, but with the booster she can at least see over the table.  It's still touch and go for meals, sometimes she devours everything we put in front of her and asks for more, and other times (more often) she picks up one thing, thinks the texture is unacceptable, and then throws it far away.


We unfortunately have a little climber. Last night, she was hanging on to the front of the high chair. (It's still out for the mornings that she wakes up early and we have to get ready--Cheerios are a mom's best friend.) Tonight she figured out how to carry the step stool over to the sink, climb up on it, then pull herself up so she's hanging on the counter to be able to turn on the water with her feet dangling about 6 inches above the stool. She can also get up on the piano bench and pull down all the things that we have up on the back of the piano.  It's a constant state of panic over here.

She will also climb into her stroller or into the old carseat that is now living in the garage, so that she can buckle the straps.

She LOVES buckles.  She is constantly buckling them and then asking us to open them so she can do it again.  One day we heard her awake after a nap, not crying, juts talking, and this is what we found:

She just smiled and said, "Buckle!"

Annie also loves her Daddy!

But sometimes she just has to be with Mama, right away! 

 She likes to push buttons, talk on the phone, and now play with an old camera. She holds it up to her face (usually backwards) and says, Cheese!


We have entered a phase where Annie will actually build a tower of stacking cups or blocks--with the end goal still the same, to knock it over. 

Last fun fact: her hair is now long enough (in the back) to put up in pigtails, but she doesn't keep them in for very long.  In the front, it's about down to her mouth, and likes to fall right in her eyes, but it's rare that she makes it through a full day without pulling out the bow.  We've lost several clips at the daycare already.  Her curls keep getting cuter as her hair gets longer.

Otherwise, we've been busy here. John's been on wards and in the ICU, so it's been a lot of late or absent nights. Looking forward to him being on elective next month!