24 things at 20 months

I/You weren’t due for another 24 things post for another month, yet here it is. Well, folks, she’s growing up. And the stuff that’s coming out of her mouth is coming faster than I can keep up with…similar to the other end when she was a baby….I digress. Here’s what my lil Scooby/girlfriend/Faithers has been up to:

#1) She sings. To the point we know what song she’s going for and that’s more than I can say for myself. Her playlist includes Baa Baa Black Sheep, Bringing Home My Baby Bumblebee (a classic), Wheels on the Bus, Jingle Bells, Twinkle Twinkle Little Star and the original ABCs.

#2) Never have I been a prouder parent than the day I handed a cup of chocolate milk to my daughter and upon taking it, she said, “Tank Ou, Mommeee.” You can tell who’s been working with her on her manners because when her dad asked her to “say, please” the other day she responded with, “Peez, Mommeee.”

#3) She knows so many words. Like rainbow, and heart, and shark, and apple. Rob and I catch ourselves daily going “I didn’t know she knew how to say that.” (In other news, watch your swears around my kid).

#4) The obsession with all things Sesame Street is becoming Intervention worthy. She now owns Big Bird, Cookie, Abby, Ernie (which she confuses with Bert, but I can’t bring myself to correct her because it’s so cute the way she says “Buutt”), Murray (he introduces the show), Elmo, and Baby Elmo. Her arms need to grow so she can hold them all.

#5) I never noticed any of Faith’s growth spurts when she was a baby (sometimes I think that’s still just something people say) but after her bout with Pneumonia, her appetite was insatiable. Girl would finish her meals and eat half of ours later. It’s since calmed down a little, but recently she made her mama proud by partaking in one of my favorite past-times: eating too many chips at a Mexican restaurant before your food comes.

#6) She can jump and run! It’s a little unorthodox, but so are her dance moves.

#7) I will probably regret typing this out loud, but she is sleeping later. Almost until 7 on most days and that includes a 3 hour nap in the afternoon. I hope this stage never ends!

#8) If you want to punch me in the face after reading #7, don’t. We still go in 2-3 times a night to find her binky and plug it in. She’s usually standing up yelling, “Binky, binky, binky, binky.” Once it’s in, she lays back down and goes right to sleep. It’s sort of like hitting the snooze button.

#9) Speaking of the binky…we took approximately 7,204 steps in the wrong direction with giving it up when she had pneumonia. She got it constantly because it was the only thing that made her feel better. Once she got better, I went back to the way it was before with only at nap and bedtime. I won’t name any names (GRANDMA JAN) but someone started giving it to her during diaper changes and when she got out of the bathtub and in the car and when she had that “binky” look in her eye. Pacifier weaning is not for the weak!

#10) Is there like a boot camp where you can send your toddler away and they come back potty trained? Are there openings? Seriously, I wasn’t really considering potty training until I went into Faith’s room one morning and she told me clear as day, “I poop.” Well, if that’s not the first thing you love to hear in the morning, I don’t know what is. So we started putting her on the potty, but somewhere along the line we messed up because she thinks the potty is where you go to sit AFTER you’ve done the deed in your diaper. She announced that she had to go potty the other day BEFORE she had to go, but she was in the bathtub, and the water turned yellow before I could even say, “Big Bird.” HELP US!

#11) My new least favorite saying. “I wun mo.” Translation: I want more. But Faith doesn’t understand that you have to have some before you can have more. When we wash our hands, the first thing she does when she sees the handsoap, “I wun mo.” My baby’s hands smell more like Pomegranate than the fruit itself.

#12) She was playing in her room the other day and after about 10 minutes, this is what we found. She tucks her babies in, but covers up their whole bodies.

#13) All the sudden my daughter is SUPER shy around strangers. I brought her to work last Friday and when I went to stand her up, she would. not. put. her. knees. down! Other than the fact she was getting heavy, I was very impressed with her core strength. Abs of steel! This is another example of her shyness. The Force was not with her this day.

#14) I thought Faith wouldn’t be into the snow thing yet, but dear Lord, I had to wrangle her inside like a cowgirl on the one decent snow we’ve had this year. I wish we would get more snow so she’d have a reason to wear her snowsuit and snowboots. She’s wears the snowboots nonstop, there’s just no reason to. I may have to burn them or she’ll be sporting them this summer at the pool.

#15) In other footwear news, Faith finally will get within 6 feet of these slippers Grandma Jan bought her for Christmas. I don’t know what frogs ever did to her, but she finally decided to forgive and forget.

#16) She handled the pneumonia (how many times have I said that word in this post –you’d think it was sponsored by the Pneumonia Foundation) like a champ, but now she has a cough. I hope it’s true what they say, that she won’t get all this crud when she starts school – if so, I’m turning her in to the principal.

#17) She knows her color. (No, not a typo). The only color Faith knows is blue. So she’s right about 1/64th of the time.

#18) Animal noises now include the owl, a rooster and a shark (dun nun, dun nun, dun nun).

#19) Apparently Faith and her dad have been practicing too many Harry Potter spells. She likes to raise both her arms, fingers outstretched, gesture toward Rob and say “Whoa!!!” When he falls backward, she dies laughing. Rob would like to add: “Apparently Faith is strong in the Force.”

#20) We always knew Faith loved watching videos of herself, but we recently discovered her “Mirror, mirror on the wall,” moment.

#21) Faith refuses to slip on her shoes or boots if she’s not wearing “sockies.” She was saying this repeatedly at the hospital one day because she wanted her boots on and the doctor replied, “I figured she either wanted her socks or some Japanese alcohol,” aka Saki.

#22) This post was written over two days. I jinxed myself with number seven as Faith woke up at 6:23 a.m. this morning.

#23) Faith is getting so much better at petting Howie. After she tells us she poops in the mornings, her next question is usually, “Where Howie?” He’ll inevitably jingle in and then we start the day.

#24) She may make a lot of messes, tire us out daily and cost us more money than we ever intend to spend at Target, but we love her more than anything! How can we not? 🙂