A quick update - 22 Months

Here's a quick update......

All three of us are are loving living in Waxahachie! We love our house, our neighborhood, and being so close to family and friends and having plenty of opportunities to get together with those we love! Our house is finally almost completely unpacked, and we're still getting some things organized and decorated but we are settled in for the most part. I will post pictures when everything's done.

Kemble has made friends at school and had some opportunities to hang out with some of our old friends, too! She got to play with Sloane and Finley last week. Sloane is 7 months old, and Finely is 15 months (and almost Kemble's size!). Kemble's got a little practicing to do with her sharing skills, but she loved playing with them both! She has also gotten some playtime in with Ellie and Lille, her school friends.

Playdate with Finley!

Crawling races!

Playtime with Sloane!

Kemble is growing up so fast! Since she started "school" and musik she has turned a few corners. Although she's brought home a few bad habits (she came home picking her nose the first day of MDO!), she has mostly just learned a lot and come out of her shell. She still cries when I drop her off, but she loves to get ready in the mornings, she loves loves loves her nap mat, and she is excited to go most days-until we get there, that is. She loves her friends and her teachers, she just gets sad when I leave, but her teachers swear she's fine within seconds after I'm gone.

ready for school! When did my baby grow up?!

She is trying harder to talk, and more correct consonant sounds come out of her mouth every day, with much thanks to Musikgarten and the power of the magic microphone! Some of her new favorite things to say are:

• "Oh!" - Anytime I point something out to her.
• "Yes." - Anytime she is telling me she expects me to say yes, like when she asks for random treats out of the pantry.
• "eye" - she loooves to point out everyone's eyes.
• "There it is" or "Right there"
• "no" - most often in the form of nononononononononono! But luckily, she does not say no nearly as much as most toddlers. In fact, she usually says "yes" to just about everything.
• She's also starting to say a few of the words she used to say in babbling - dod (dog), boopf (book),

She loves to sing songs and do motions or play instruments along with it, and she loves to dance. She loves to have a favorite song and listen to it over and over again. She surprises us every day with how much she knows. It's amazing that even though she's not saying much yet, she processes and fully understands SO much. She can identify every letter of the alphabet by pointing (and she can say O and I). She can also identify most shapes and colors, and many numbers. She still loves saying animal sounds and acting like animals and she is learning more and more every day. She loves to help me count things. She loves stickers and sticking them onto every surface of her body. She loves to dig in the fridge or pantry and find things she thinks she needs to eat or drink. She loves to choose everything from her clothes and shoes, to which sticker she wants, to what plate she uses and what foods she wants. I've found that it makes doing things she may not necessarily want to do so much more pleasant! All you have to do is give her a choice, and she becomes happy about whatever it is! I love when we figure out these little Mommy tricks! Don't want to get in the car? Well just choose which side you want to get in on, or what music we'll listen to, and suddenly it's no big deal! She loves to be independent and if you try to play with something she's playing with, be prepared for your hands to get shooed away and some mild scolding to come from her.

I forgot to mention...she also loves getting into cabinets.

It's hard to find an empty piece of furniture in my house, but she found one!

Most of all, she just seems so grown up. She gets it when something's supposed to be funny, and she gives me this little knowing look and laughs, sometimes with a tummy clutching bend or a knee-slap to go with it. She knows when she's being silly and will often say "siddy". She is getting so snuggly and, when she's in the mood, loves nothing more than to curl up in my lap and sing or watch TV together. Don't think I get to pick the movie though, no way jose! I tried to get her to watch Tangled with me yesterday and she was having nothing of it. She's not quite into the Disney movies yet, they just don't hold her attention.

Mommy's little helper

She has been super, super clingy to me. It really started in Galveston, where she probably had to fight a little harder for my attention and was just slightly out of her comfort zone (even though she had a blast!), plus Stephen wasn't there the second week. Since then, we've (officially) moved, started school, and Stephen has traveled TWICE to Mexico (ughh!) so it has gotten worse. Lately she has been really angry at Stephen when he gets home from work, despite that she talks about it him all day and thinks every time the phone or doorbell rings, that it's him. (By the way, I don't know why she thinks it's him when the doorbell rings since he walks in the backdoor! Ha!) It's funny too because she is 100% fine on the weekends when he's home, it is just the weekday evenings. Anyway, she is fine and dandy with him if I'm holding her, but if I dare put her down or heaven forbid I actually try to hand her off to him or let him give her a bath (!!!) she goes absolutely (screaming-her-head-off-holding-her-breath-crying-til-she-makes-herself-throw-up) berserk. It breaks his heart, and frustrates the heck out of both of us because we tried to ignore the reaction but you can only listen to so much of that forced screaming and crying as loud as she can. We were pretty sure she just felt a little abandoned and maybe a little nervous that I was going to leave her with him (because she's got that separation anxiety anyway after starting MDO), but then Jill suggested to us that she is probably, in the only way she can, showing him how mad she is that he's not around all day - especially with the business trips going on - and trying to make him feel guilty. So one particularly rough evening of this, he whisked her away to the pool and she had stopped crying before they even passed the house next door! It was so much better after that. He's had to take her outside to play a few times but once she realizes he can do fun stuff too, she's good. We're just trying to hold firm and let him do the putting to bed and bathing and playing some too, and we sure hope this phase is over soon!

Wearing the outfit Daddy brought her from Mexico

Since starting school, she's also been more fascinated with the potty, since there is a bathroom in her classroom and a few of the kids are already potty training. This week, she squatted down to go to the bathroom and was simultaneously trying to pull off her shorts. I asked her if she was going potty and she said yes. I went back to drying my hair and when I was finished, I couldn't find her. She had gone into the potty closet in our bathroom, closed the door behind her, and was splashing and playing in the potty! I didn't scold her, because I didn't want her to have any negative feelings about the potty. Last night, she was squatting again, and I asked her if she wanted to go sit on the potty instead, she said yes, so we did, and she very intentionally went tee tee in the potty! We made a big deal out of how great it was and she was super excited. Let me make it clear that I am in NO hurry at all to get her potty trained - she is not even 2 yet!! However, I do want to start building the foundation and excitement so that when we get more serious about it, it will (hopefully) be successful quick. Her potty chair is going in her bathroom asap so she can get used to its presence, if nothing else.

Can't believe next month she will be 2! Two year old update, birthday pictures and house pictures... coming up soon!