Peanut Smiles

Dear Lexi,

We just finished the last ‘official’ month of summer and I have mixed emotions. I’m not ready for the cold weather to start yet, but it has been insanely busy so I’m ready for things to settle down a bit. It feels like this month has gone by really quickly and really slowly at the same time. Looking over my notes from the month, I questioned, “Did that really happen this month, it feels like that happened so long ago.” You continue to develop more personality every day. You get very upset if we don’t give you or allow you to do something and fall to the floor in tears—very tantrum like. You’ll even swing your whole upper body and head your head back and forth if I’m holding you and almost try to bang your head against mine, and then get even more upset if you do as it hurts. It is a very interesting little pattern you have. You continue to be very shy around new people and places for the first 20 minutes or so requesting to be held or hiding between my legs but eventually warm up and leave my side. Overall, you are a very happy little girl and love to play, dance, be tickled and give hugs to mama and dada.

Favorite moments:

At the very beginning of the month, all of the neighbors got together for National Night Out and it was so fun to just watch you run around and play with all of the other kids. It was one of the first times I felt like I had a small child and not a baby. You were happy and content playing with the kids and didn’t need mama or dada by your side. It was so nice to talk with other neighbors and just know you were OK playing without constantly worrying about what you were doing or where you were.

We headed up to the Tansey cabin for an evening to spend some time with Tara, Dan and their kids and I loved watching you play with Megan. You are about 4 months apart and both have blond hair and little pigtails and it was just too fun to watch you playing with your cousin! There was a couple of times where you were both in your diapers and standing on either side of a coffee table coloring. Melts my heart to see you start to develop relationships with your cousins as I have so many memories and much fun with mine.

Two little sayings you picked up from us and say on a regular basis are: A-dookie-dookie for okie-dokie and ‘up-e-go’ for up-we-go whenever you want to be picked up or are laying down and are getting up. So cute!

We regularly catch you having conversations with yourself. While dada was working he heard you playing on your slide downstairs and hears you tell yourself to ‘Sit-Down’, which you proceeded to do and than thanked yourself for doing so. It is funny to hear the stuff we say so often repeated back to us and fun to see you pick up on it.

You sit down and read to yourself on a regular basis, but there were two instances that were particulary cute. The first was while I was putting clothes away in your room and you were sitting on the rocking chair with your book ‘Things that go’ and you were flipping through the pages and pointing out the different pictures on the book. ‘Farmer, Ambu-ence (ambulance), doc-or-tor (doctor), boy, garbage truck. The other scenario was you had propped your pillow up against the side of the crib and were leaning against it with one of your blankets wrapped around your shoulders and reading your monster book. As we were spying on you doing this, we caught you adjusting your blanket to make sure it was wrapped around you just so. Just too darn funny!

For the first time this month, you started to sing along with me. We were in snuggling in the rocking chair before bed and I was singing Twinkle Twinkle and you slowly attempted to repeat the words after me. It literally melted my heart and recorded how sweet it was to hear your little voice singing a song with me. You’ve started to do this more often and will attempt to sing ‘Let it Go’ from Frozen even though you only say, Let go, you will tell me that ‘I singin’.

You also really love the song ‘Happy Birthday’ and soley refer to it as ‘Happy Daddy’ as you like to watch videos of the family singing happy birthday to dada for his birthday. As we sing the song over and over and over again, you request we sing it to different people, most commonly, Ashley and Courtney, but also very obscure things like eggs and the sky and different animals.

Hands down, one of my favorite things every day is an unprompted hug from you. We’ll be playing chalk outside or laying on the couch and you open your arms up really wide and run to us and squeeze extra tight and say ‘Huuug’. It is seriously the best!

Notes:

You continue to get better and better at puzzles. I would say you can get 90% of the pieces in by yourself. You do much better with animals as you are able to match up the feet. You ask to do puzzles almost every day.

Your Favorite toys: princess castle, chalk, reading books, playing with necklaces, slide

You attempt to say our last name and it usually comes out something like ‘Sam—pon’

Your bedtime routine has changed a bit over the month. After giving Dada hugs and kisses and saying good-night, you proceed to say bye-bye or nigh-nigh to everything in sight including your cars, your house, your babies, the trees—really anything that you can see, you try and say good-night to. In an effort to make it go faster and not have you need to fall asleep with me, we’ve been making changes. We have cut down on our songs and our books to one song and one book. You almost always ask/beg to snuggle with me before you go into your crib where you would like to fall asleep. While we’re snuggling you ask for me to hug you, which means you want me to wrap my arms tight around you. If you don’t fall asleep in my arms, which I try not to let you, there are epic screams when I put you into your crib and beg for more snuggle time and cling to my neck and wrap your legs around my body so you don’t have to go in. I’ve also been making a better effort to not threaten you that I’m going to put you in your crib if you don’t listen so it doesn’t feel so much like a punishment and it is just something that we do.

This month has brought some ups and downs of potty training. You were doing really good with telling us and going to the potty so we attempted potty training. We put you in under ware and had you going to the bathroom every 20 minutes and you were not having it. I think there was too much pressure for you to go and you started moving in the opposite direction and refusing to go into the bathroom. So we stopped doing that and rarely ask you if you need to go and you’ve started to come around the corner again and will go maybe once a day and will usually tell us when you need to go.

We also went to the State Fair for your first time. I was going there for work, and decided to have you and Dada meet me there. It didn’t turn out very well. You missed your nap and are not a fan of your stroller at the moment so there were some epic meltdowns to begin the day and quickly realized that visiting the animals wouldn’t be very fun as you pretty much need to be out of your stroller to see them and to put you back in is such a fight, it wasn’t worth it to take you in and out. So we ended up getting a few pieces of food, taking your to the tractor area to let you run around and then headed home. Hopefully we’ll have more success next time.

This month, I also started a new job at Best Buy which is going really well and I really like it. And so far, the commute is better than UHC and I feel more fulfilled and not so much as I was settling.

You also learned to open the fridge and pantry this month which has opened a new set of challenges as you regularly like to go into both and take things out, or pick out the food you want to eat. We’ve had to rubber-band them shut—which you really don’t like.

You’re starting to understand what the word ‘scared’ means and tell us you’re scared of everything, with thunder being the most prominent. You regularly ask us about thunder and tell us it is scary. When it actually is thundering, you want to snuggle or ask to hold our hands.

You’ve also started to like to play games on the i-pad and ask to play them on a regular basis, as well as watch shows and movies.

That’s it for now my sweet girl! We love you so much and can’t wait to watch you become a big sister, 6 months and counting!

Love,

Mama

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

Dear Lexi Lou,

Sweet girl, I can’t believe you’re half-way to two. You are growing up so quickly and am enjoying every moment and each new milestone you reach. You are a cheerful, smiley, sweet, analytical, chatty and content little peanut and you have your mama and dad absolutely infatuated with every piece of you.

Favorite Moments

Because I leave for work before you wake up each morning, I always look forward to bed time. It is good quality mama-Lexi uninterrupted time and this month brought lots of extra snuggling time.  We usually read a couple of books sing songs and then I lie you down in your crib to fall asleep on your own. For whatever reason (I think it was teething) I got in the habit of letting you fall asleep with me in the chair and just cuddle. Deep down I know this isn’t a good habit to form as it is difficult for you to fall asleep when I’m not there and it is just good for you to fall asleep by yourself, but I so rarely get cuddle time with you, I just couldn’t resist the peacefulness of the way you would nuzzle your head against my chest and the sounds of your deep breathing. I would look forward to that moment when there weren’t any distractions of the TV, my phone, you being busy and I could truly enjoy the moment. I was also known to fall asleep once or twice with you.

While discussing sleeping, you’ve really come to love nursery rhymes this month. You love tongue twisters with Peter Piper and Peter Peter Pumpkin Eater being two of your favorites.

After the busy weekend at Leech Lake over Memorial weekend, I was a little hesitant to take you swimming when Auntie She-She called and asked if we wanted to join her at the outdoor pool at the gym It was a beautiful day and we hadn’t been swimming in awhile so I said sure. Oh my stars alive, did you love it. You were laughing and giggling and loved singing songs (Motor Boat, Wheels on the Bus, and Row Row Row your Boat). You were having so much fun, and kept saying ‘summon’ while the lifeguards were taking a break that we had to go swim inside until the break was over. It is so fun to share your joy over some of the simplest things. And you and that hat, is just too cute. (if I take it off, you ask where it is and demand it to be put back on your head.)

While playing with your foam letters and numbers in the bathtub one night, you were repeating many of the letters or numbers I was sticking to the wall, so I thought I would just see how many letters of the you could repeat and was astounded that you could say them all. You won’t say them by yourself but when I ask Can you say ‘A’, you respond ‘A’ and repeat 26 times with each letter. Way to go Lexi!

I’m a little fearful of this next milestone as I’m nervous it indicates a problem we may have in the future. You love to wear my shoes, well really, any shoes, and love to look in my closet, pull clothes off the hanger and demand to wear them. Sweet for an 18 month old, but terrifying for 15 years from now.

Oh sweet girl, I love to see your nurturing side show through. Currently, you love to push babies (or really any object) in your stroller and insist that they come outside with you so you can take them for a walk. I know feminists may cringe at the thought of this, but I sincerely hope this is a trait you never loose. Male or female, the need to want to care for others isn’t something that everyone has and it is an asset that I believe will take you far in life, whether that it is caring for your own children if you so wish, me and your dad in the later years or life, sticking up for others on the playground or in the workplace. Going the extra mile to help others is always appreciated.

Notes:

At your 18 month check up you were 33.5 inches and 28 lbs, putting you in the 90% for both.

You use a spoon or fork at every meal. You’re successful about 50% of the time of getting food on the utensil and into your mouth, but eventually resort to using your fingers (while holding the fork in the other hand). Yogurt tends to be a messy one.

Your two bottom eye teeth popped through at the same time at the beginning of the month. You were a little crabby, but overall not too bad.

You continue to be a chatter bug and I have completely lost count of the words you say, but you’ve started putting sentences together. You’ve been saying ‘what happened?’ and ‘What’s that?’ for a couple months now, but have started other phrases like ‘Where go?’ and hi dada (hi dago). You also can now say bankie, which for some reason is absolutely adorable when you say it.

You love playing ball, whether it is throwing it or kicking it. Your favorite thing to do is roll it under the cars and see where it gets stuck.

Your hair is getting thicker and longer! Makes your ponies much easier to put in! You’ve also got some curl to it. I’m not sure if it is the length that it is at, but almost everyday, the back part just naturally curls out! There aren’t many things cuter than a little girl with curls, and in my biased opinion, you are not an exception!

You have an obsession with patty cake these days. You want to listen to it over and over and over in the car and want to play it at home and in the cart in stores and pretty much ask for pat-a-cake 24/7.

There have been a handful on tantrum’s that we’ve seen out of you. They mostly occur when you’re tired, haven’t seen me all day and I’m telling you no to something. You fall to the floor and start whining, but usually it is over as fast as it started.

You got to meet one of your new cousins Brian, not sure why you look so grumpy here cause you kept saying Baby over and over again while we were there and on our way home.

You continue to drag your three amigos with you everywhere you can.

Happy 18 months sweet pea! We love you so much.

Love,

Mama