21 months old

Miss Taylor turns 21 months old today, and this picture just about sums up how the last month has been:

That’s right. Completely OUT OF CONTROL. And guess what? We survived. Not only did we survive, we killed it. To me, Month 20 was a smooshed up ball of incredible highs and a few anxiety attacks. We were able to experience Christmas through the eyes of a toddler, and it made all past holidays fade into the background. To watch our daughter’s face light up in absolute joy while ripping wrapping paper off her gifts was one of the most precious moments of my life. The smiles, the squeals, the happy-dance... NOW we get it. It almost made me want to exchange all of my own presents in order to buy her some more new, shiny things to watch her open. Almost.

So, yes, cuteness was all around at the Amys house this past month. Whether it be impromptu dance parties in our living room, singing the Hotdog song from the Mickey Mouse Clubhouse cartoon or just having a nice, afternoon fake-coffee party, there had to be at least ten moments each day that I stopped, took a deep breath and thanked my lucky stars that I am able to experience every second of this.

Oh, and an important milestone to record in that we are completely off the bottle now. We had been down to her having just the before-bed bottle for about four months, mostly in fear that ditching it would disrupt her 12-hour sleeping stretch at night. Yes, selfish on our part, but I LOVE TO SLEEP. Sue me. Anyways, the first few nights without her bah-bah, she was a bit confused and whiny, but by the fourth night she didn’t even look for it. And then something awesome happened – We replaced the bottle with a nightly book. Okay, THREE nightly books. And while she has always let me read to her during the day, those stories are usually rushed as she’ll violently flip through the illustrations and barely let me read half a sentence on each page. But now, at nighttime, she snuggles into my chest and listens to every word, not even bothering to turn the pages herself, and she just lets me read to her. And every night we finish up story-time with Goodnight Moon, I kiss her head and she’ll look up at me and say, Love you, Mommy. And every night it melts my hearts.

She’s also talking so much more now, grouping words together and, sometimes, just spewing gibberish. She also discovered the word, Mine, and likes to grab random objects and announce that she is the owner. MINE baby. MINE Elmo. MINE bear. And as far as the babble, I would say that it is adorable 85-percent of the time, and down-right frustrating the other 15-percent. Like when she’ll point at something and say, GOO-YA, and I’ll look up and see nothing that matches that word. And then she’ll start shaking and stomping, GOO-YA. GOO-YA. GOO-YA. And I’ll just look at her and say, WHAT ARE YOU TALKING ABOUT? And one of three things will happen here, either I will distract her with a treat, or she’ll have a total melt-down, or she’ll grab something that is so obviously NOT a GOO-YA, give me THE look, smile and be over it. Whatever.

Oh yes, she is definitely starting to test her boundaries – read, OUR SANITY – more and more frequently. She knows what will and will not get a rise out of me, like sticking her hands in the trash – Big No-No – versus spiking all her fake food on the floor – Hey, if that’s where you want your food to go. And I’m learning to read her moods much better as well. For example, she is extremely fragile after she wakes up from her nap, and if I want to accomplish ANYTHING during the afternoon hours, it’s best to wake up our princess with cartoons, milk and a tasty treat. She gets this from her father, only he prefers SportsCenter and a Diet Pepsi.

We did have a couple monumental melt-downs this month, one ending with her being put in her first-ever time-out. We were all downstairs enjoying the afternoon when our darling daughter started crying because Chris was eating a snack. And even though he was willing to share, Miss T just lost her marbles because she wanted the whole bowl. It was madness, mostly because she had her own little treat sitting in a bowl right next to her, and they were both eating the SAME THING. So we just laughed at her, told her to get a grip and kept doing what we were doing, all with the lovely sounds of screaming in the background. And then she stopped crying, picked up her bowl, looked me straight in the eyes and SPIKED IT ON THE GROUND. And before it finished bouncing on the floor, I had her off her feet and on the rug in the corner of the room. TIME OUT, I screamed. And I would have left her there by herself, but I had to stand close in order to cradle her head so she didn’t slam it on the hard wood, all while Chris and I just looked at each other in fear that our kid had spontaneously been possessed by the Devil. And after a few minutes, the smoked cleared and our happy-go-lucky daughter returned. And Chris and I just stopped and were like, What was THAT? And everyone we told that tantrum story to just laughed and said, THAT is your daughter starting to become a two year old