Eighteen Months!

Dear Mackenzie,

You are 18 months old today! And you are such a sweet, funny and smart toddler! I love your adorable kisses and the way you hug my neck and pull my head closer to yours when I am carrying you. I love the way you greet me when I come home: You run into the foyer with a big smile on your face, raise your arms above your head and twirl around. I love that when you hear upbeat music, you start swaying to it and wagging your finger in the air. I love that when you accidentally knock something over or drop something, your eyes and mouth widen and you say, "Oh." I love the way you giggle when I chase you around the house or tickle your armpits.

You are so observant and copy a lot of the things you see me do. When I put on lotion, you hold out your hand so that I will give you some lotion, too, and then rub it on your hands and neck like I do. When I put on lip balm, you purse your lips until I put some on you, too, and then you smack your lips together the way you see me do it. Sometimes, I give you the lip balm and you expertly put it on yourself. When I drink from my water bottle, you open your mouth wide and say "Aaaaaaaaah" until I give you a sip of water as well. Once you drink it, you let out a satisfied, "Ahhhhhh."

You know so much already. When I take a pair of your socks out of your drawer, you immediately hold up your foot so that I can put a sock on it. If you hear the front door open, you run to the foyer to see who is coming into the house. When you saw Daddy put on his jacket, you waved bye to him since you knew that meant he was leaving the house. When Second GuhGaw was crying, you knew he was sad and patted his head to comfort him. You know that when you look sad or cry, I will hold you and snuggle with you, so you often pretend to be sad by hanging your head down and fake-crying to get my attention--sneaky girl!

You can feed yourself with a fork and spoon really well; sometimes, you even insist on feeding yourself and won't let me feed you. You really like to read and know that once I change you into pajamas at night, it's time to read bedtime stories. You walk excitedly over to your bookshelf, select a book, walk over to me and plop into my lap. You have several dozen books but you always pick the same favorites: Bedtime for Batman, Your Baby's First Word Will Be Dada, Where is Baby's Mama?, Curious George at the Zoo, Elmo's ABCs and your four Frozen books (you've never seen the movie but you love seeing the characters from Frozen). You're also fond of books with flaps and textures to feel.

 

Other things about you at 18 months: 

-You're a picky eater. You try everything we feed you but a lot of it gets spit back out, especially meat. You do like broccoli, peas, oranges, bananas, strawberries, yogurt, string cheese, rice and pasta. The one thing that you always eat and eat a lot of is oatmeal.

-Your hair is so long and goes well past your eyes. I tie it up in a little ponytail on the top of your head but you *always* pull the hair tie out. Hair clips and barrettes also don't stay in your hair for very long so you're constantly looking out at the world through a veil of fine black hair.

-You are girly like JieJie and enjoy dressing up with dresses, hats, sunglasses and purses.

-The other day, you put a doll in the toy highchair and pretended to feed it applesauce with a toy spoon. Then you hugged the doll so sweetly!

-When you're not happy about something, you purse your lips like a duck and pout. When you're angry, you scream like a banshee and scratch whoever has offended you (yeah, we have to work on not doing that anymore). 

-You don't like it when my attention is diverted away from you for too long so if I have been talking to someone else for awhile (i.e. five minutes), you start babbling REALLY loudly so that I can't hear the other person over you. Or if I have been looking at my phone, you stick your face right in between it and my face!

-You ask me to sing "Itsy Bitsy Spider" *every* night at bedtime, sometimes dozens of times.

-I sadly had to stop breastfeeding you when I got my Covid vaccine but you still like to be cradled while you drink your bottle of milk. Whenever I hand you your bottle, you back up toward me to tell me that you want me to pick you up and bend your knees as soon as I start lifting you up. Then you lay in my arms while you drink your milk. I really miss breastfeeding you so I am grateful that I still get this milk-drinking bonding time!

Love,

Mom