19 Months Old!

Oh man, I’ve really slacked off on writing this post! Claire turned 19 months old on December 8 and I’m just now getting around to writing this. I’m starting to feel silly referring to Claire’s age in months and tend to just say she’s a little over a year and a half. Even so, I’ll probably keep doing these monthly posts until she’s 2. I love seeing how she changes from month to month!

Here’s a rundown of Claire these days:

Weight: Almost 23 pounds! We took her to the doctor sometime last week (she was sick) and she weighed in at 22 pounds 11 ounces.

Loves:
- The moon, trucks, Elmo, and babies!! Especially babies lately. Our friends visited us last weekend and she couldn’t get enough of their littlest one.
- To shush us – it’s hilarious!
- To dance! She’ll even act out songs or books. For the 5 Little Monkeys song, she’ll wag her finger like she’s the doctor saying, “No more monkeys jumping on the bed” and looks super serious. Cuteness overload!
- To rock on her “rocking horse” but really it’s a fawn. It was her first birthday gift from her Nana.
- Cheddar bunny snacks – she called them “bubbies”.
- Playing with Zoe!
- To take her baby doll on walks in her stroller.
- To pretend to feed her stuffed animals or dolls. She’ll take her Camelbak water bottle and “pour” it into their mouths.
- Being outside.
- To feed Zoe breakfast and dinner as well as give her bones.
- “Hooray for Fish” – it’s her favorite book!
- We have a Potty book so she can get use to the concept of going in the potty. She loves the book! Totally participates and repeats the words in the book while we’re reading it.

Hates:
- Diaper changes.
- Being buckled in the car seat. She’ll fight it and once she’s buckled in and we’re driving, she’ll tell us she’s stuck.
Talents:
- Talking!! I’ve been keeping track of the words she says and we’re up to 69 words!! She’s getting really good at mimicking what we say.
- Some cute ways she says things:
  - Boo-ee: Blueberry
  - Nuk: Milk
  - I lah loo: I love you
  - Cheery: Cheerio
  - Jackey: Jacket
  - When the light is too bright, she covers her eyes and says “eyes”
  - When she’s hungry, she says “eat” and does the sign language for that word
- Really good at identifying body parts. She’ll randomly point to her nose and say “nose”.
- She says “thank you” at appropriate times without us telling her too! She’s so polite.

Sleeping:
- Generally, we put her down around 8 and she’ll sleep until anytime between 4:30-6:30am. Some days are earlier and some are later. She seems to wake up earlier on the weekends… I wish that wasn’t the case and we could sleep in for once!
- Our bedtime routine is typically dinner, bath, pajamas, and then we read around 4 books while she prances around the room and/or rearranges the bookshelf. When we’re done, we give her a kiss goodnight, lay her down in her bed, and leave the room and she almost always goes right to sleep without fighting it.

Other Random Facts:
- We left daycare on December 2 and when we told her to say bye, she walked up to the dog that lives at her daycare and waved bye, gave him a bone, and then walked over to the singing Santa and said “Bye Santa”.
- I was told that she was dancing to the singing Santa with the other daycare kids and one of the boys grabbed her hands and twirled her around. So sweet!
- People make comments pretty regularly that she’s talking really well for her age.

We are loving this age!! And especially the fact that she’s becoming more and more independent. Tonight, she spent almost an hour coloring with crayons. We obviously joined in for part of it but she was totally content doing that on her own.

P.S. We can’t wait for Christmas!!! She is loving everything about Christmas so far – Santa, lights, Christmas tree, decorations… I can only imagine what she’ll think on Christmas morning. 😀