19 months old!

We have a 19-month-old daughter! She's so big!

Lainey loves playing with Play-Doh. Shortly after this picture was taken, she decided to sample a chunk of the Play-Doh...yum.

• I am happy to say that finally she is happy and secure when I drop her off in childcare. She has always been fine at school (except for day one) but she would continue to cry when we dropped her off at church, at the gym, and at Bible study...places she's been going to frequently for months and months and months. But I can happily say that she no longer cries when she's dropped off in childcare! She walks in, plays, and then when I pick her up she likes to show me what she played with during her time away from me. Example: At the gym, she'll quickly push a toy around or go down the slide...sometimes it's hard to get her to leave!
• Her language is developing. Her new favorite word is "messy". It has replaced "uh-oh" as the most popular word in her vocabulary. Other words include: "shuise" (juice), "oh, no", "yeah" (yes), "mou" (mouth), "no" (nose), "tees" or "ees" (please), "dee dee" (binky), "gagoo" (goggles that Grover wears in one of her Elmo books), "ow", "Essie" (for Aunt Elsie, Yiyia's sister), "soo" (shoe), "choo choo", "Ma" (for Uncle Matt), "mow/now" (meaning meow for what a cat says - she says this in a high-pitched voice), "Any" (for Amy, a friend and babysitter), and she tries to say "Ariel" but it comes out like "Aaheel", the Little Mermaid character who is pictured on her toothbrush.
• Lainey used to be able to say the "b" sound appropriately, but now it seems as though many of her b's have been replaced with d's. So "baby" is "dady" and "Abby" (Abby Cadabby from Sesame Street) is "Addy". "Boo Boo" has turned into "doo doo". :)
• She loves playing with cars, babies, puzzles, colors, and stickers and any toy where you put a letter/shape into a specific slot.
• Squeezing other peoples' cheeks is very exciting to her. She'll squeeze her own and then immediately look to squeeze someone else's. Even if it's someone behind you in the grocery line.
• "Itsy Bitsy Spider", "Old MacDonald", and "Head, Shoulders, Knees and Toes" are some favorite songs.
• She likes to eat cereal (not picky on which kind) with milk for breakfast (ahh, a child after my own heart). :) She'll start off using a spoon, but then tires of that and will just grab the cereal with her hands. She'll also eat yogurt with cereal in it, although this becomes quite messy because again, she will start off using the spoon but then will resort to using her hands!
• Putting on her own pants and shoes is a challenge for her, but one she generally (when in a good mood) enjoys. She can't quite do either completely independently yet but it's fun to see her try.
• Sesame Street is wonderful. Lainey LOVES Elmo...all things Elmo. She will point at the TV and demand "Elmo". Kinda embarrassing that she does that, but I am grateful for the distraction sometimes (like when I'm making dinner or she's just in a super-fussy mood). Lainey also likes Dora the Explorer and Barney and Friends.
• She flat out refuses to hold my hand in a parking lot. Or really anywhere. I mean she sits on the ground and cries and screams in the middle of the parking lot in defiance (yes, I know, so safe).
• Whole apples are delightful, but she makes her mom remove the apple stem and the core part from the bottom of the apple before eating.
• She's the first to tell you "uh-oh" when your purse or bag strap falls off your shoulder - she'll rush to help you put it back on.
• Lainey loves ketchup. She'll eat it with anything - pretzels, goldfish, mac 'n' cheese, you name it. Sometimes she'll eat it plain. It is a great way to get her to eat meat, however. I'm grateful for that!
• "Where is ______?" is still her favorite game (apply this to books, toys, body parts, Elmo on TV, etc.). We also play "Where is Lainey's car?" every time we're in a parking lot.
  

This is our child playing "Where's Lainey?". And no, Reagan doesn't enjoy playing "Where's Reagan?". :)

• Lainey generally still takes a good 2-3 hour nap every afternoon...usually just after lunch. She goes to bed around 8 or 8:30 (on school days, it's earlier) and wakes up between 7 and 8 in the morning.
• I've had to put several doorknob locks on various doors...one happens to be the door into the new baby's room. She loves going in there and trying to put her babies to sleep in that crib. She'd also like to get in that crib. So for now, the room is off-limits.
• She furiously waves her hands up and down when trying to show us her hook 'em horns sign. We're trying to teach her to do the hook 'em horns sign correctly, but right now, it looks as though she's gettin' her guns up for a Texas Tech game.
• Her biggest fits are thrown when we have to leave the park. It's horrible. It's sad, but it makes me not enjoy going because I know what happens when it's time to go. She does fight me on a lot of things right now, but I think it's just her age. I hope so, anyway. :)
• Ben and I are definitely at that point where we have to spell words around her these days, namely "park", "outside", and "bink".
• Finally, her babies get lots of love from her. She loves to rock them, and she loves for me to rock both her and the baby. She also puts them to sleep many times a day, always laying them face-down (on tables, floors, wherever) and covering them completely with a blanket and patting their backs. Her school teachers do this - well, they don't cover them completely with blankets but they do pat the kids' backs. She adds to the routine by saying "shhhh" and trying to put her finger to her lips, but most of the time she's just smooshing her nose with her fingertip. It's cute. Too bad she doesn't know what "shhhh" means...soon after they are asleep she wakes the babies up again by squealing and yanking off their blankets. What does this say about future interactions with her little brother?
  

getting sleepy