Everly's 21-Month Update
Only a few more months until this girl is 2!! She has changed so much since Rosie has joined us, I feel like she's growing up so quickly now. She's soaking up words and songs like a sponge. She loves doing the actions to the itsy bitsy spider and 5 little monkeys jumping on the bed. It's so cute watching her do them! She's still pretty quiet at story time where she learns these songs, but then once we're home she loves to do the actions and sing. It's funny, at home she's one person and in public she's another. It takes her so long to warm up to people and she seems so shy around strangers. Maybe it's a good thing, but I feel like a lot of people don't get to see her personality!
We leave her in childcare a few times a week, once during church, then during my moms group and then sometimes at the gym. They always say how sweet she is and how she's so good at helping to clean up the toys. It's so nice to hear that as a mom! I have started getting her to clean up her toys before bed with me and she's so helpful. Hopefully that lasts! When we're out at the library for story time she rarely interacts with the other kids. She likes to keep to herself, and I've noticed she's more of an observer. She's either playing on her own, or she's just standing their watching other kids play. Hopefully playing with her cousins this summer will help her warm up to other kids!
She says "oh geez" all the time which is hilarious. I said it once and she caught on to it and says it whenever she drops something. It is so funny, but also made me realize I better watch what I say! She is talking so much more now, half of the time I can understand her and the other half is a guessing game. It's pretty fun, until I can decipher what she's saying and she gets mad at me. It gets me so excited to be able to have conversations with my girl so soon!
I've also realized she needs a lot of lead time before something happens. Like if we are going to leave the house I need to give her 10 minutes notice so she can finish playing or put away her stuffies. Same goes before bed. I have to tell her we are going to bed soon and tell her she can play for a little bit longer or have any last minute snacks if she's hungry. Then we'll slowly clean up her toys, then I have to tell her we are going to brush her teeth. Then we put her pajamas on and then come back out to the living room to read a few books, and then I tell her what we're going to do when she wakes up, we pray, make sure all of her blankets and stuffed animals are in her bed, grab her soothers, turn her sound machine on and then FINALLY she's ready for bed. If I don't do this whole routine she cries the second I put her into bed.
Jason also bought her a Cincinnati Cyclones jersey for valentines day and she's obsessed. She knows it's the same one he wears and she didn't take it off for 2 days straight when she first got it and it's a fight to not let her wear it every single day. It's so cute that she loves it so much!
Toys & Activites
Her current obsession is Elmo and cookie monster. She has literally one book with them in it and for some reason it's all she can talk about. She's never even watched Sesame Street. Whenever she talks on a phone and I ask who it is, she always says Elmo. Or when we go to the library she's all about Elmo. Or when we're driving anywhere she's always like "Elmo, Cookie Monster". She's also loving making play-doh shapes, playing with water in cups, coloring and having tea time with her stuffed animals. She's also always feeding and burping her baby and basically any stuffed animal she has. She also loves going swimming with Jason at his gym. They have such a blast and it's always so sad when she has to leave.
Food
Her fave thing to eat right now is Annie's noodles, so I always try and cut up some meet and veggies into it so that she's getting a balanced meal. She would also eat full fat plain greek yogurt at every meal if I let her, and she always pulls the peanut butter, Manitoba hemp hearts and flaxseed out of the fridge to put in her yogurt. She'll carry everything over to the table, it's so cute how helpful she's getting. Her treat lately has been frozen strawberries. She loves having a few before bed. Or energy bites, she loves when I keep them in the freezer and then we have them as treats together. She will also always join in on my salads. She used to just pick out the tomatoes, but now she'll eat the peppers, cucumbers, radishes and even the spinach! The other day I was meal prepping and she grabbed a whole pepper and started eating it like an apple. She ate half of it like that! Turns out her taste buds are growing! She is honestly such a good eater. Oh and I can't forget her new obsession with tea. Whenever I make a mug she always has to have some. She says "tea" all the time, and whenever we are at church she's gotta have some decaf earl grey. Girl after my own heart. She loves her liquids, including bone broth. Whenever Jason and I are having some she'll literally take it from us and finish it. It basically tastes like chicken noodle soup to her. She loves having bites of Jason's homemade mini "pizzas", eating hummus by the spoonful, and anything spicy. Oh and if we can consider it food, she loves eating all the snow and icicles.
Day-to-Day
She literally sleeps SO much! She wakes up around 7:30-8am, but could stay in her crib until 9 or 10 if I let her. She is crazy. She'll just be talking to her stuffed animals, it's so cute to listen to. I used to get her when I first heard her, but I have quickly realized that if I get her before she's ready she's cranky, so I just let her play on her own until she calls for me. It's nice to have a quiet morning with Rosie. Because of the late sleep in she usually naps around 1-1:30 and still for 2 hours! Sometimes she'll stay even longer just playing with her stuffies again. I usually go get her by 4 if she hasn't called for me because I feel like it will affect her sleep at night. Then she'll go down around 7:30-8pm. I love how much this girl loves sleep. When she's not sleeping we're at story time at the library, outside going for a walk, doing at-home workouts together, at the mall play area, playing with her toys at home, running errands or at moms group at church. She goes into childcare a few times a week at church and then maybe once at the gym. She has gotten SO good. She actually plays and doesn't just make someone hold her. I'm not sure she's actually playing with the other kids, but she's playing with the workers. It's a step in the right direction!
Giggles
This girl is always laughing. I honestly love her laugh. Sometimes it's this low forced laugh, and other times it's an uncontrollable giggle like when you tickle her. She usually laughs when I sing songs to her, or when Jason crawls towards her, or really any time you're paying attention to her. She also still thinks it's hilarious when someone drops something. Whenever I do an at home workout she thinks all the moves are so funny and tries to do them too.
Grumpy
She's been way better with being grumpy lately, but lately she will get mad if we don't let her watch videos on our phones. We have introduced some learning videos on youtube for when I'm feeding Rosie or if we have a long car ride, and now that she knows what it is sometimes she'll see my phone and say "elmo". The videos aren't about elmo, but for some reason that's her word for youtube videos. Anyways, we obviously don't want her watching it a lot so she'll have a small meltdown if we say no, which makes us want to never let her watch it. Basically I just can't be on my phone a lot around her or she just wants to be on it, which is probably a good reminder for me to not always be on my phone!
Milestones/Firsts
She is talking SO much and we can actually understand some of it now. She says lots of words, and even a few words together now. Like "up mom" if she wants me to come play with her, or "more please", and then her main words are, Elmo, lasagna, cookie, church, tea, hoppy, woah, baby, Rosie, gogo (goalie), blue, yellow, hockey, squirrel, girl, boy, home, apple, and dishes. She's also big into sounds for animals instead of their names, like she'll roar for a bear and say moo for a cow and she'll snort for a pig. She's also learning her letters! If we point to letters in her Curious George book she knows some of them, mostly the first bunch from A-G. We are slowly working on the rest! She can also climb out of her crib now, but she only does it when it's time to get up. When the lights are off and we put her to bed she's never tried to climb out (yet). One morning though I had to wake her up so I opened her door and turned her light on but she just laid there still with her eyes closed, so I went to change Rosie. Next thing I know she's walking into the kitchen with her bunny! It was so cute and made her feel so old already. I can't handle all these changes. Her hair also fits into a ponytail now which makes her look like a little girl!! She's growing up way too fast these days.
Best,
Stacey