One month closer to one and a half!! Yikes! And as always, this month was full of changes and new developments.
Riley seems to have learned a TON this month. She can now do some of her puzzles all by herself, and you can visibly see the concentration in her face as she checks out the puzzle piece she's holding, then scans the puzzle board, looks back at her piece to see where it matches, and then she puts it in. It's awesome to watch. This also means she can now change all the letters in her leapfrog alphabet fridge magnet toy (it's basically a loud version of an alphabet puzzle). And she can put her shapes in her shape sorter by herself (most of the time).
She's learning a ton of new words, and trying to repeat what we say all the time. Some new words include: money, cart, mail, orange, pizza, rock, slide, outside, Minnie (as in Minni Mouse), Wiggles, peel (when she wants you to peel an orange), shake, teddy, firetruck, eyes, nose, ears, head, and probably about 30 more. She loves to say "no no". She is getting really good at communicating what she wants (and doesn't want). For example, she'll climb onto Mark's lap and say, "row row?" or "cake?" meaning she wants to sing row row your boat or pat-a-cake. She'll come to me and ask for "go go?" which means she wants help finding her Go, Dog. Go! book so I can read it to her. She asks for help all the time, which has really decreased the number of tantrums we see. She also comes up to me and asks for "A A A?" or "teddy?" which means she wants to play the alphabet "game" on starfall.com. She LOVES letters and the alphabet lately, and can say the letters A-K and their sounds, as well as M, N, R, P, and S, which is just about the cutest thing in the whole entire world. She also can name and point out a bunch of letters without being prompted, her favorites are "I" and "G" and I have no idea why. She also has started singing ABCs with me. She will start to sing A, B, but if I am singing, she fills in about 5-6 of the letters, and then yells AGAIN! when we're finished.
She loves airplanes and birds lately, and gets really excited when she see one in the sky. She will FINALLY wear hats, although she still takes her shoes and socks off the first chance she gets. On a similar note- she still does NOT like to sleep in footed pajamas. If I put them on her, she fights and fights to try and pull them off her feet. If somehow I do manage to get her in bed with her PJs still on, literally the second she wakes up in the morning, she looks at me and says, "Off? Off?" Sigh, I'm not going to win this battle, which is a shame because those pajamas are so stinkin' cute! She has also started making this silly new face this month, which can be seen below:
She watched Minnie Mouse on TV for the first time a week ago, and became instantly obsessed with Minnie Mouse. She started saying "Minnie Minnie" after just watching it once, and now knows exactly who Minnie mouse is! She also knows who Elmo is, although only from books since she doesn't ever watch Sesame Street. She also watched Curious George for the first time with my parents the other day, and apparently really likes it and knows and can say George, although it sounds more like "Joe." She can distinguish hot and cold, and says both of them appropriately. She blows on food that's hot and says "hot hot hot!"
She still loves to say hi and bye to pretty much everybody, and is getting pretty good at blowing kisses. She loves to check the mail and play outside. She runs to the back door at says, "outside?" over and over and over again. She LOVES to sit in the front seat of the (parked) car and push all the buttons. She still loves to be chased, and thrown onto the couch and wrestle with her daddy. She loves to pinch people's necks and cheeks. She loves Bailey the dog and now squeals/screams in excitement when she sees her. She also discovered she can feed the dog, which means we have to keep a close eye on her otherwise Bailey gets most of her food!
She has become an expert ipad user. She can turn it on, unlock it, scroll through until she finds the apps she wants, pick them, and do them herself. Her FAVORITE thing on the ipad is to watch a short movie called "Jack Jack Attack." If you even mention Jack Jack, she gets so excited and repeats "Jack Jack Jack!" and then goes "yayayayayay!" complete with fist pumps. In fact, one day we had to wake her up from her nap, and she was out like a light. She wouldn't budge. We were saying her name, rubbing her back, trying to wake her up gently, and Mark goes, "do you want to watch Jack Jack?" and she literally popped right up and almost fell over trying to get out of the crib in her groggy state, all the while saying "Jack Jack?"
She's learned a few more body parts (cheeks, chin) and she's learned a few more animal sounds (turkey), and she likes to count, and can say numbers 1-5, and can even pick some of them out when asked (2 is her favorite). Size-wise she's in anywhere from 12-18 month clothes to 2T, wears size 4 diapers, size 5 shoes, and who knows how much she weighs! She hasn't gotten any more teeth, so she still has 12. She's still obsessed with her milk, and drinks a TON every day.
I know this is getting long, but so much has happened this month! Riley has decided she loves when I tell her stories. Not READ to her, but tell her oral stories, like fairy tales, or even stories I make up. Often before nap time I will bring her in bed with me and she'll lay there and listen to an entire story, and then fall asleep snuggled right next to me. It seriously is one of the best things ever. She and I took a 3 hour nap the other day after I told her all about Cinderella.
Also, forgot to add, she has started telling me when she's about to poop (by saying "poo poo"). And then she tells me when she's all done, and I change her. Potty training might be sooner than I thought!! Basically, this month has been awesome. And, I can't believe in just one month, she will be 18 months old!!! I love this little baby bug!!
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