Halfway to the terrible twos!

Claire was 18 months old last Friday, and it kind of passed me by until Audrey commented on it on here! I've been telling people she's 18 months old for a couple weeks now, so it was kind of anti-climactic when it actually came!



Here's an 18-month snapshot of our little girl:

Appearance
Weight: 22lbs
Length/Height: ? (Haven't been to the doc or measured in a while, will try to post this later)
Eyes: Brown
Hair: light to sandy blonde mullet

Favorites:
Word: NO!
Veggie: Green beans
Foods: Tomato-ranch chips, grilled cheese bread, almost any kind of meat, noodles (spaghetti), almost any fruit, esp. strawberries, blueberries, apples and oranges.
Toys: her new toy kitchen and her "baby," any number of baby dolls she has just started showing an interest in; and a Cadoo game I picked up at Goodwill called Caribou (find the balls under doors you have to open with a simple key--she points and says "ball" until I say "your ball game?" and then she nods.)
Books: New faves are the "tactor" book, which is just an informational kid book on milk cows with some tractor pics; this Goodwill book about Tilly and her tutu; the bear book, an illustrated "Hush Little Baby" book with bears acting out Papa's elaborate gifts. Old faves are Yes Yes, No No! (which she can read half of by herself), Big and Little, Curious George lift-the-flap book
TV/Movies: Harold and the Purple Crayon, Elmo's World, Backyardigans, Dancing with the Stars (well she does dance to the Latin numbers!), and High School Musical (seriously, she is transfixed during all the songs!)
Activities: Our daily afternoon walk with Shadow (she has her snack, "counts" rocks that I put on her tray, names everything around her she can, and then watches Shadow take a dip in the neighbor's pond.); riding the four-wheeler or tractor with Dada or Papaw; just being outside doing whatever; reading her books; wearing mama or dada's shoes.


Pets: Da-woh (Shadow the black lab mutt) and our new cat, which we all only call "cat" for now. Will do an intro post with pics on this cute little orange, half-tailed tabby later.

Originals

• The Mamaw-Papaw song: In the sweetest little falsetto, "Mamaw...Papaw...Juice" and repeat.
• Any fat book is a "Bible," including hymnals at church, which she can usually leaf through for a good ten minutes of each service.
  

New skills
Naughty face: sticks out her tongue; surprised face: opens her mouth really wide; in addition to old happy face/smile pretty trick of squinching up her eyes and showing her teeth. (We have a book called Funny Face that tells the boy's face with each change of feeling.)

Counting: I've been counting to five on lots of stuff recently, and she will often try to guess the next number, which is usually "two" or "dive". Sometimes I'll hear her "counting" things to herself, usually saying "two, two, two, dive" or mixing them up a little bit more.

Colors: She can consistently identify red, yellow, blue, black, and orange, b/c these are the crayon colors we have left of her bathtub set, which is where we've practiced the most.

Cleaning: Anytime she sees me wiping down a table or sponging off the countertops, she says something like "kee" because she wants to clean, so I give her a dry sponge or a paper towel and she wipes various things down. She also uses this excuse when she gets into her diaper bag wet wipes or antibacterial wipes.

New words
Down, up, "wa-wa" for water, eat, candy, cookie, sucker (whoa that's a lot of sweet words!), movie, milk (where she used to just say bah-bah, but now she's having milk in a cup more often), meat, bread, apple (for all biggish round fruits), orsh (orange), poo-poo (one step closer to potty training!), elmo, abby, sticker (when we enter Wal-Mart, she starts saying this, I'm not kidding!), color (for crayons or other writing utensils), paper (when we get the mail at the end of our walk, she usually requests the paper--a news junkie already!), heh-woh (hello, when playing on the phone), amen (at the end of a prayer, when we've told her we're praying), sun, moon, stars, lots of animal names: horse, cat, dog, cow, duck, bird, mouse, and sounds for elephant, alligator, giraffe, and snake that really only Jay and I can understand.

Even though I'm with her most of her waking (and a lot of her sleeping!) hours, she still surprises and delights me each day. Life is so much more meaningful and fun with her in it!