nineteen months

Month 18 passed in a blur. We spent three of the four weeks feeling unwell and I'm so glad March and good health are now here! Well...mostly good health. Now that Avery isn't running fever and has actually managed to take a bit of her medicine, she's decided to be the clumsiest kid around. I'll spare the details lest the blog world start to think I beat my baby, but today she did trip both before and after her nap outside and sadly it affected the same knee/shin. She's got a scrape on one knee and oh my gosh is she ever my daughter! I have no doubt it hurt and probably stung when I cleaned it, but the rest of the afternoon she had to be carried around except when she wanted to play, of course. And when she was done doing what she wanted she'd hold her leg and say, "Knee" in the saddest way possible. Feeling bad over the last few weeks has upped her dramatic factor times a hundred and if she weren't so darn cute I'd probably have had enough already. But the truth is, she's really really cute!

I think the biggest difference over the last month has been language development. She repeats almost everything we say! It makes communicating her needs to us a little easier, but sometimes it takes a couple of tries before she shakes her head yes or says, "uh huh," like, FINALLY you understand me!! This week we took another trip to the doctor so for the last couple of days she's been saying doctor and then touching her leg and whispering, "ow!" because she got a shot. Kind of funny, but also sad. I think that antibiotic shot was worse than any of the major shots to date!

She's a whiz at colors these days and moving through more shapes and even a couple of letters. I know I've talked about her love of stickers before, but I do believe stickers will be key in learning the alphabet around here. Yesterday we worked on a birthday card for Texas (gotta love our state/former country!) and I had her spell out Texas at the bottom in pink foam stickers. Of course I gave her the stickers one at a time so she had no choice but to spell it correctly, and sure, some of the letters may be turned a little crooked, but! BUT! She repeated the letters when I handed them to her and that's a big deal because she's never interested when we go over letters. In fact, I can't even get through half the alphabet song without her waving her hands and telling me, "Done! Done!" So after Texas' birthday card, I let her pick out another piece of colored paper (surprise, she chose blue!) and we spelled out dog. Stickers are awesome!

It amazes us, the things she remembers. Tiny toys get put in the most random of places and she'll toddle off to get them when I ask where they are. I've loved and been loved on so much over the last month, she's really just the sweetest girl. Yesterday was such a gorgeous day and after spending much of February indoors, we needed to go for a stroll. As I pushed her around the neighborhood I thought about how thankful I am to spend this time with her. I'm so glad I get to stay home and share in her whole day. To spend hours coloring, painting, gluing, watching Elmo, staring at fish, reading - and so much more. It's not a perfect life, but it's pretty close.



Happy 19 month birthday baby girl, we love you lots!