My baby is 21

Months, that is.

I can't believe that in 3 months time she'll be 2! That went WAY too fast!

In honor of her "birthday" I want to take a moment to reflect on the things she's doing these days.

- This morning she busted out her new phrase "Darn it!". I about died laughing. Thanking the heavens we're very careful about our own language!
She loves airplanes and helicopters. One flew over head as we were getting out of the car. I pointed at it, then said "oops, it went behind the trees so we can't see it anymore. Darn". She looked at me, cocked her head and said "Yeah. Darn it!" LOL

- She loves to sing. Most of the time it's her own little songs in her own little language. But the other day I was listening to a book on tape in the car in which one of the characters sings a lullaby. Later that evening, after only hearing the lullaby once, Rebecca was playing with her baby and singing. I finally realized she was singing the lullaby! I'm so proud :)

- She is very opinionated. She likes to pick out her own clothes and is NOT happy when you pick something for her she doesn't want to wear. I foresee many days of mismatched clothing in our future and I'm just fine with it!

- She's ridiculously, mind-bogglingly smart. She has an amazing memory and talks up a storm.

- She can count to 3. And likes to randomly throw in the number 6 when she's counting. So it usually goes like this. "One.... two.... three..... six.... two.... six..... one.... two.... three"

- She's starting to learn what "one" and "two" mean. She can tell me if there are one or two barrettes in her hand. One or two socks on her feet.

- She knows several colors. Right now she can correctly identify pink, blue, green, yellow, orange, red, and white.

- She loves music and loves to dance.

- She walks around on the very, very tips of her toes. Not on the balls of her feet, but on her actual tiptoes. Brian calls her our little ballerina. I'm starting to have visions of the NY City ballet...

- She's such a happy, smiley girl. Rarely is she tantrum-y or fussy (unless she's cutting teeth or sick. Then all bets are off)

- She tells us when she needs her diaper changed. Typically she'll take our hand and walk us to the changing table and say 'Diaper please. Diaper is yucky."

- She loves books. She has parts of a couple of her books memorized.
She'll sit down with Sandra Boynton's Moo Baa La La La and flip through the pages.
She'll see the picture of the cow and say "Cow says moo" then the sheep "Sheep.... BAAAAA" then the pigs "La la la. No no! Oink!"
Which means "A cow says moo. A sheep says baa. Three singing pigs say la la la. " No no!" you say, that isn't right. The pink says Oink all day and night". Turns out I have it memorized too.

- She sits at the table without a booster seat most of the time now. She just sits on her knees and eats. If we're having something particularly messy or hard for her to reach then she'll sit in the high chair. But she prefers to sit in the "Chair! My chair" versus in the "Seat"

- She is a GREAT eater. This child packs away more food than I could have imagined. And yet she's still a SKINNY little girl. She's not picky. She loves fruits especially. She could (and has) eat her weight in blueberries. The result is not pretty.
The only 3 things we've ever come across that she really dislikes are peas (I don't blame her), plain yogurt (again, I don't blame her) and cottage cheese. Otherwise, she'll chow down.

- Her favorite food is probably tacos.
This morning on the way into work she had a stuffed puppy in her lap. I could hear her talking in the back seat so I asked her what she said. She replied "Puppy is eating tacos". Then she proceeded to make "Nom nom nom" eating noises. She cracks me up.

- She loves having her photo taken. When she sees the camera come out she gives a big grin and says "CHEEEEEEESE!"