18 months old!

It's hard to believe that Lainey is 18 months old. I was just looking at her the other day thinking how much she's grown...it's gone by so fast. It's funny - sometimes your days and weeks seem to drag but time itself seems to be flying. She's 28.4 pounds (90-95th%) and 33 inches (90th%). I could NOT get a good picture of her yesterday, so this one will have to do!

Lainey's 18-month-old tricks and mannerisms:

• She's officially conquered the stairs, going down on belly, bottom, or foot. Of course, she would much rather be held than do any of those. ;)
• LOVES puzzles and seems to be getting pretty good at identifying the simple shapes (triangle, square, rectangle, circle) on her shapes puzzle.
• Recognizes her dirty diapers (sometimes) and will say "uh-oh"
• She is starting to become interested in baby dolls. She likes to "rock rock" them in her lap and then put them to sleep with binkies...usually she covers them up completely with a blanket. She will say "rock rock" but it comes out like "auk doo" or "auk dee". I've been encouraging this baby-care behavior! I hope she does come to enjoy taking gentle care of babies...
• As a follow-up to the previous bullet point, Lainey has also taken an interest in real babies. Slight obsession, more like. She isn't so gentle yet, though, and would really just like to play with their bows, their binkies, their blankets...and perhaps poke their eyes out. We'll work on this!
• She does like to point out people's (and babies') eyes and say "eye".
• Her blue binky is her favorite.
• Sniffing the zipper on her sleep sack is a comfort to her. It's cute. I actually think she likes anything with zippers - I've even seen her cling to a jacket and nuzzle with its zipper.
• We like to call her "Bruiser" because she literally will try to pick up or move anything and she grunts the whole time. (Again, slightly worried b/c I know she'll try to pick up her baby brother in the future.)
• She prefers green Apple Jacks to the orange ones, and the marshmallows to the crunchies in a box of Lucky Charms (who wouldn't?).
• New words this month: "dubbles" (bubbles); "no"; the monkey noise, "abble" (apple); "eye"; "doggy"; something that sounds like "quack quack"; "off"'; "ooom" (vroom, for a car)
• She likes to say "Lainey" and "Ally" (for Aunt Allyson) and "Ella" (but it sounds more like Elmo), but she doesn't say the L sound very well so it's kind of hard to tell what she's saying. So Lainey is "Yaiyey" and Ally is "Ahyee" and well, Ella is "Ulmo".
• I think she has perfected her tantrum. She yells "no" over and over and over and stamps her feet and jumps around in front of me (well, she kinda jumps...she still needs jumping practice). At this point we laugh because it's just hard not to. I know they will become less humorous when the tantrums start happening in public places or when they happen more often. I would love to get one captured on video...
• Most of the time, she can use her finger to show you the number "1" when asked how old she is.
• When we tell her to blink, she blinks and smiles, thinking she's being funny.
• She really enjoys eating whole fruits like apples and pears.
• She LOVES school and is so happy there. This is such a blessing!
• She tries to make the elephant noise and uses her arm for a trunk - it's really funny. I'd like to thank her book Dora the Explorer, It's Riddle Time! for inspiring that one. :)

Happy 18-month birthday little Lainey!!