22 Months

We have been super busy and I'm getting behind on my blogging. Let's hope I can catch up soon. We just got back from a family reunion/vacation in Utah and Idaho. We had a great time and I will be posting about it soon. While on our trip, Stella hit 22 months and I wanted to do her post before anything else because, at this point, she'll soon be hitting 23 months. This last month has been really fun with her. She's talking lots more and communicating a lot more, so it's fun to be able to understand better what she wants and what she's thinking. She's a funny little girl.

She started counting this month. She would count to two at first and was very good at it. Then, one day she just started counting to ten. She would usually skip a number or two. For awhile it was three and then she got three down and would skip eight. Now she's stopped counting to ten, but counts to five without skipping any numbers. I feel like this means she's pretty smart.

She's also learned to say her whole name. I don't know if she knows it's her name or even what a name is, but she says it nonetheless. She also started saying "do it" when she wanted to do something, but it came out sounding more like, "doodle it". It was super cute and awesome. Unfortunately, it was fleeting because now she just says, "do it" like everyone else.

Let's talk about Stella's eating because I have a lot of pictures of that this month so it must have been a big deal for her. She's a pretty good little eater. Sometimes we really have to work to get her to try things, but we usually can persuade her and she likes most things we give her. She also doesn't really spit things out if she doesn't like something. She just eats what's in her mouth and won't eat anymore. Of her own volition, she tried a kumquat. We have a kumquat tree that is loaded with kumquats all year round. The ground is littered with ones that are ripe and have fallen off (because we seldom pick kumquats since, in my opinion, they're kind of a useless fruit. If you have any good ideas of what to do with them, please let me know). Stella picked one up and tried to take a bite of it. I grabbed it and told her she couldn't eat the ones on the ground but that I would pick one for her. So, I picked one and gave it to her and she took a huge bite.

She finished the whole kumquat, but wouldn't eat anymore and hasn't tried to get anymore since. I don't think she liked it. She did like our trip to 7-11 on 7-11 day for our free slurpees. We'll do that again next year.

She's pretty good at feeding herself, but gets impatient with the fork and spoon. If she's having finger foods, she usually gives up on them after a little while and just picks things up.

If it's not a finger food, she does her best and then I step in and feed her the rest when she's tired of doing it herself. Like with this yogurt. But, she does pretty good and doesn't spill much. It's kind of exciting.

See that hat she has on in the yogurt picture? I bought that for her in preparation for our family reunion at a dude ranch. I couldn't resist when I saw it and she totally loves it. She wears it often and not always in appropriate situations. But, even if the situation doesn't call for a cowboy hat, she still pulls it off and it's cute.

She really likes swimming now. After her swimming lessons were over, she would practice all the stuff she learned in the bathtub. And she would even make some of her bath toys do the swim moves she learned. And she got pretty brave in the pool, too. And, she mastered the art of relaxing after getting out of the pool.

She's into glasses. She gets sunglasses and what they're for. If we're driving and the sun is shining on her, she yells, "Bright! Glasses!" and keeps yelling it until we pass her her sunglasses. Like her cowboy hat, she doesn't always wear them in appropriate situations.

But, like her cowboy hat, she always pulls it off and looks cute anyway.

Stella seems to be getting into music more this month. She's started copying the chorister at church sometimes and she's started trying to sing a little. She has a book called The More We Get Together which is just the words to that song and when we read her the book, we sing it. Well, we noticed recently that when she saw the book, she would say, "more gether, happy gether" in a sing-song voice. It's pretty adorable. She's also learning the songs they sing in nursery at church, so I'm hoping she'll soon try to sing along.

Speaking of nursery, me sneaking out a few minutes before it was over did not go over well. She's still a momma's girl through and through.

She's developed a new habit when she doesn't want to do something. She says, "night-night" and lays down. So, if I tell her we need to go change her diaper, she frantically says, "night-night" and lays down to try to avoid it. I'm not sure where she picked that up or how she thinks it's going to solve her problem, but it's funny.

Stella definitely keeps us on our toes and is a bundle of energy. We love watching her learn and discover new things and just enjoy life. It's exhausting, but fun!