Busy Life, Good Life

April has been full of good times. We have been so busy living life, I haven't really had a chance to sit down and reflect about anything. We started out April 8th with Emily's 20 mon. "birthday." April 9th was Cooper's big first birthday party in Bowling Green. April 14th-April 17th we were in Texas visiting Ed and Jen and new baby niece, Elizabeth. April 22nd was our anniversary and Karrie and Darrin McKinnon's couple's baby shower, April 23rd was the day Jeremy and I actually celebrated our 5th anniversary, and April 24th was Easter! This coming weekend is Nancy's birthday and the next weekend is Derby and Mother's Day weekend. Having a little hard time keeping up with all the events.! Plus, I left out that we recently had refinishing work on our kitchen floors from water damage from our fridge. We had to remove pretty much move everything out of the kitchen except for what was inside the cabinets right before we left for our trip to Texas. It took me a week to get everything back together. I'm currently waiting for our contractor to come back and start my closet project. Yippie! (The largest closet in our house has never been organized properly. It is just a big empty space with no rods or shelves or anything.) We had to remove everything out of that closet, too. Can't wait to have a more functional closet to store toys, out of season coats and clothes, etc.

Emily 20 months:

Vocabulary keeps growing to the point that I can't keep up with all the words she knows and can say now. She is able to put a few words together now and form simple sentences. Here are some Emilyisms:

1) "I want ____ " usually I want juice, or milk, or car or choo choo, etc.

2) "I got poopo" or my personal favorite "I gotta big poopoo." "BIG is our current adjective of choice."

3) "I down me" or "I done me." We aren't sure what she is saying, but she says this when she wants to get down out of her high chair and she is all done with eating.

4) "I sit me" She likes to sit down beside us in the chair when we read books. She still lets us hold her, but she also likes to sit in the big chair without being in our lap.

5) Possession words. "Daddy's shoe, Mama's shoe, Emmy's shoe."

6) She puts the ending "ney" at the end of many words. For example, she calls fruit and gummy snacks "fruitney" and Aunt Jen is "Jenny" and chocolate is "chocney."

7) "I driving." She says this all the time while sitting and driving her little red cozy coupe! She LOVES this car so much that I halfway feel bad for not getting it sooner. She wants to sit in it all the time and she likes to get in/out of the door, push it around, even "pretend" wash it with a sponge!

Language development is the most interesting thing right now. In other 20 month news, I have noticed that her left foot tends to toe in quite a bit and as a PT, it makes me wonder if I need to be worried. Articles I have read online don't seem to be too concerned about toeing in at this age. I will definitely bring it up at her 2 yr appt. and talk to our peds. therapists about it. I'm trying to get her to change positions whenever she starts "W" sitting and I stretch her from time to time. We moved Emmy from her highchair to a booster seat at the table with us, but I may change it back. The change was motivated more by having nice, shiny kitchen floors and getting tired of highchair marks on the hardwood more so than a "need" to change. The past few nights, we have noticed that Emily asks to be let down before eating much of her meal. We've had more trouble getting her to sit and eat at the kitchen table compared to the highchair. Tonight, she fussed at the booster seat and wanted to be let down. We allowed it and then put her back in her highchair after she had run off some energy and she ate everything. Coincidence?

Emily's bedtime has been stretched back to about 8:30pm since Jeremy doesn't get to see her as much due to his new job. We still wind down at 7:30 with a bath, PJs, books, etc, We just have extended the cuddles and books on most nights. She usually sleeps from 8:30 to 7 am or so. When she wakes up, she cuddles with us in bed until we all have to get up (between 7 and 7:30.) Nap times can be inconsistent. She NEEDS 2 hrs, but sometimes she likes to get by on an hour or so. Sometimes she will fuss for a short time after waking up after an hour nap and immediately go back to sleep for another hour without much protest and other times she will not go back to sleep unless she is held. Then, there are the glorious days when she will sleep 2 hrs or more without any interruptions.

Life with a 20 mon. old is full of giggles, hugs and kisses, chases around the house, kissing "boo boos", redirecting melt-downs, and enjoying much laughter!