Month: July 2014

Dear Lexi,

You are 19 months old today, which means you’re only 4 months away from being two. I feel like I can easily say you’re ‘almost two’, which is strange because I would have never considered saying you were almost one at this point last year.  We are in the heart of summer and were lucky to enjoy several of the fun activities that often come with summer this month.

Favorite Moments:

Your 20^th month started off with the booms of the 4^th of July fireworks. We headed to Excelsior to watch the airshow and fireworks.  You loved watching the airplanes and every time one flew by there was wide eyes, pointing and ‘Oh Wow and owwww’ sounds escaping your little body. You were absolutely fascinated with them. The fireworks were a little less impressive to you. By the time they started to go off, you were pretty tired and just wanted to go home, and kept asking me ‘home’ while they were going off.

The following weekend we made a trip to the Wisconsin Dells with Mitch, Teresa and Nessa. The weather wasn’t super warm, which made the outdoor pools breathtakingly chilly, but we did find a favorite spot at a wave pool. Instead of several waves coming, one really large one would come every 5 minutes or so and sweet girl, you loved it when the water would sweep your legs out from under you and woosh past you. You would go down the kiddie slides with mama and dada but I wouldn’t say that you particularly enjoyed it. Your face usually showed terror, but not enough to prevent you from going again. You also rode on a little balloon ride that you hated and literally crawled out from the buckle so I could hold you.  I think it was the spinning and the quick up and down movements that made your tummy flutter.

At some point throughout the month you learned how to ‘cheers’ a glass and do it on a regular basis. You raise your glass and say cheers and will bang your cup against anything that you can. In fact, you often ‘cheers’ yourself with your milk and water cups.

You’ve come to grow an obsession with the book, Love you Forever and solely refer to it as ‘Cwazy’. There is a line in the book that say’s “This kid is driving me CRAZY!” and you love it! Admittedly, the book is a little creepy, but you ask to read it all the time and read it to yourself as well. From time to time, we hear you say the word ‘me’ and the respond ‘CWAZY’ and giggle to yourself as I typically read the line and pause after the word me, so you can say ‘CWAZY’.

At the end of the month we were also able to make a trip up to the B-well cabin and went for a boat ride down to Duluth, which I thought was really fun as I have been up there nearly every year but have never really been out on the lake aside from a little canoe ride. For you, the highlight of the trip was going for a ride on the mini-bike with dada. You were terrified at first, but then became more comfortable as time went on and now ask to watch yourself riding the ‘cycle’ whenever you see my phone. We also printed a picture out of you and dada on the cycle and you’d think it was Christmas morning every time you see it.

Overall, I think the best part of the month was the fact that I only worked 3 days a week and was home to do fun things with you and enjoy the summer. We went to the Zoo with Grandma and She-She, went swimming at Elm Creek, played in your pool at our house, went to different parks and on bike rides. It was great and so fun to enjoy those activities with you.

Notes: 

You regularly ask to go ‘Simmon’ and attempt to put your swim suit on over your clothes to let us know you would like to go ‘simmon’.

You’ve started to use the word sorry, but don’t know how to use it in the right context and say it at very random times or when you want us to stop doing something.

Your final eye tooth came in so you only have your 2-year molars left!

We’ve noticed you’ve started to slim down a bit and your belly doesn’t stick out quite as far and your thighs aren’t as roly-poly.

You’ve learned how to pronounce you ‘G’s and can now say ‘Gamma’. You’ve also learned how to say Lexi and regularly tell us when something is your’s or when you want something you call it Lexi’s.

Your hair is long enough to put into a full ponytail, but we still prefer pigtails as they stay in better.

You wear a size 4 diapers, size 6.5-7 shoes and clothes depend on brand but typically wear a 3T on top and 18M-2T on bottom

You know all of your body parts and can count to 2 and say ABC when you’re reading to yourself.

You love to push your babies in your stroller outside and around the block.

When you go to sleep at night, you insist that you’re covered with a blanket or as you refer to as ‘carpet’

I’ve been working with you for months on this but you finally learned how to blow bubbles in the water.

While playing on your beloved slide, you were hot rodding, and I believe you were standing on top of it and feel off.  I was in the kitchen making dinner so I didn’t see, but we think you feel on your wrist as you were holding it and saying ‘owie’ and couldn’t use it well at all. You nursed your arm for a good 4 days and we wondered if you had broken it or sprained it or something, but the doctor didn’t think you had and you seem to be fine now. You did get a pretty good bruise on it and occasionally nurse it if you bump it, but I think you’ll be just fine.

You also had a little sickness this month. You woke up with a pretty good fever and were very lethargic all day. Medicine helped, but when you woke up from your nap, you had a 104 degree temp and the medicine wasn’t kicking in an hour later so we took you to the doctor to get checked out to make sure it wasn’t something serious. You ended up throwing up for the first time as you were so terrified and upset about getting weighed. Blood tests looked fine, but then the next day a rash appeared all over your body that looked like Roseola again. That rash evolved into some nasty blisters most significantly on your bottom and face, with the ones on your bottom being the worst. It took several days for these to start to look better and eventually go away and involved conversations with the doctor everyday sometimes multiple times a day. You still have a little scaring on your bottom but hopefully they will continue to subside as more time passes.

That’s it for this month my little love bug. I love you!

Love,

Mama 

Dear Lexi,

Another month down in the books and it was busy! We had something every Friday, Saturday and Sunday the entire month! There were a couple of sleepovers at Grandma B’s house and lots of time spent outside playing. We were also up at a cabin with the Sampson’s for several days and you had so much fun playing with your cousins’s Ashy and Coco!

Favorite Moments:

At the beginning of the month, I took a day off work so we could take you to the zoo for the first time! We made the long trek down to the Minnesota Zoo. I hadn’t been there in almost 20 years and was excited to see how it had changed. The highlight of your trip for sure was seeing the sharks. I’m not sure what it is, but you get SO excited about sharks! All of the other animals were too far away for you to really see and many of them were pretty obscure, you don’t know what a moose or a camel is so you were pretty un-phased. It was still fun and you enjoyed being outside and walking around with mom and dad.

This month you turned a corner and have finally been able to ask for giraffee. It comes out as draffee, but you ask for it a lot and your eyes get huge and twinkle with delight whenever you see him. You seem to ask for him most when you are in the car. I’m not sure if you’ve had it in the car a few times and you are used to it or if the car makes you sleepy and you want it to cuddle, but it is so sweet to hear your little voice asking for draffee.

The several days at the cabin brought many favorite moments this month. The sleeping arrangements weren’t ideal, but we made it work and you weren’t too crabby. You and Coco were pretty much inseparable the entire time. You would follow her around and read books together, play with your animals, pretend to take naps, play cards, color etc… It was so fun to watch the two of you together.

There was two days were the sun came out and it was warm enough to go swimming and you loved it! They had a little floaty that you could sit in and you thought it was the best thing ever. We would sing songs and spin you in circles and you would kick your little legs and kept repeating, ‘I simmin, I simmin, I kick, I kick.’

We also had the boat up at the cabin with us and you loved going to boat rides. You would hand us your life jacket, put your arms through the holes by yourself and say ‘boat, boat boat’. You loved going fast and watching the everyone tube. It was a much different experience than last year when you hated wearing your life jacket and you screamed the entire time.

Throughout the month, you continued to add more words to your vocabulary and have started putting phrases together. A few of the most popular ones are: ‘oh gosh,’ ‘oh man,’ ‘lets go’, ‘I simmin,’ ‘oops-e-daisy,’ ‘i sorry (but never use this one in the right context)’

Every time we go to the park, you get a little better at climbing the stairs and going down slides. This month, you attempted to climb up a little rope/chain ladder and you did great. I didn’t know how well you were going to do, but you only slipped once, caught yourself and continued climbing.

While I was at work one day, you were playing with your little people race car track and got your hand stuck in the flap that the cars go through right before they finish the race. You calmly called to Dadda, ‘uh-oh Dada, uh-oh,’ ‘uh-oh Dada, uh-oh’. Dada peered over the ledge and sees you just looking up at him with your arm stuck in the ramp. He said it was the funniest thing as you clearly couldn’t get your arm out yourself, but didn’t panic at all and just called for dada to come help you.

Notes:

Right after your 18 month shots, you had Roseola. You’re fever came about 24 hours after your shots, so I thought you were still reacting to that, and then the next day, you had little red dots most notably on your hands and feet, but were also on your back and neck too. For whatever reason, you were terrified of the doctor that was evaluating you, (in your defense, she was a little creepy looking) and screamed in terror and held onto my neck with a death grip and attempted to climb up me until a little ball to avoid being an inch closer to her.

Mom and Dad got you a little slide to play with and you were very hesitant it at first but now love it. You climb up it and slide down it and have even become a little show-off and stand on top of it too. It provides a good amount of entertainment for you as you bring your pals, your cars and pretty much anything you can push down it with you.

Nursery Rhymes continue to be a favorite. We finally got a large book with what feels like over a hundred nursery rhymes. I never realized how gruesome some of them where and how many of them really make no sense at all. (3 blind mice, Peter Peter Pumpkin Eater)

Your attention span is noticeably longer as you sit through longer books and TV shows. You still have an obsession with Daniel Tiger, Choo Choo Bob and Dinosaur Train and ask to watch them non-stop, literally sometime you ask over 20 times a day. Usually we only let you watch if you’re not feeling well, had some sort of incident or we really need to get something done without you in our hair.

You love to sleep with your pals cheek to cheek. Most of the time, we turn the monitor on and see you sprawled on your back with giraffee and piggy or doggy on each side of your face.

You love the sit-n-spin and giggle as you go round and round.

I would say you’re officially in ‘parrot mode’ where you repeat 70% of everything we say.

While changing your diaper (which you call diapy) you almost always say tummy, which means you want a wipe to wash your tummy with. Not sure where you got that from but it happens almost every diaper change.

Your top eye tooth came in and turned your happy smily personality into an angry whiny little toddler. Thankfully, it only lasted a day or two.

We went to a splash pad for the first time. I would say you kind-of liked it. The water was pretty cold, and you didn’t like anything that sprayed in your face and wouldn’t go anywhere by yourself. However, if I held your hands and we ran through things that sprayed low, you seemed to really like it. I’m curious to see if you like it more as you go a few additional times. That seems to be a common thread with many actives for you.

As we go through our bedtime routine, you are very particular about which songs you want me to sing you to. If I start to sing a song you don’t want, you tell me ‘no, no, no, stop, stop, stop.’ So, i’ll start listing songs and you veto most of them. A popular one this month has been ‘Take me out to the ball game’

And that rounds out your 19th month my sweet girl. Dada and I love you profusely and just can’t get enough of you.

Love,

Mama