Another month has come and gone, and again, lots has changed with our precious little Ri Ri. But she's still just as cute as ever. AND. She let me put her hair in pigtails. I just about died from the cuteness.
Riley's language is exploding! She repeats everything we say, she talks in sentences, and just jabbers all day long. She loves using adjectives (big one, small one, soft, too hot, too cold, green one, blue one, etc) to describe things. My favorite development this month is her ability to recount and retell things that happened earlier in the day or even days earlier. For example, when daddy gets home, we usually make a point of asking Riley to tell him what she did during the day. It's fascinating to listen to her come up with the things that must have stood out in her little mind. For example, if we went to the playground, she will tell him about the swing and slide and see-saw etc... If we went to playgroup, she will tell him she saw her friend Nikau, or that her friend Zach pushed her down, or she played with a ball or rocks or whatever other things she did. Some days, if she got in trouble for something, she will tell him what she did wrong by saying, for example "no kicking mama."
Riley has always loved books, but this month she started "reading" a ton of her books to us! She can finish the sentences of a bunch of her books, and some of them she has started reciting the lines on pages she knows! My favorite is listening to her recite "If You Give a Mouse a Cookie," I even got it on video for you below. She also knows her books by title and will ask for which one she wants, and some of them she has made her own names for (For example, she calls "Mr. Brown Can Moo! Can You?" the "cock-a-doodle doo one", and her car book "the beep beep one.") She's also started singing the ABCs and a handful of other songs as well.
Riley has mastered all her wooden puzzles and her shape sorter, and it still cracks me up when she sits there and shows me her shapes, saying "trapezoid! hexagon! octagon! pentagon!" And if for some reason she can't get the shape into the right hole, she yells out "mama help-a you! no working!!!!" She loves fire trucks and trains, and baby dolls and tea sets. She HATES having her diaper changed, and kicks and fights and tries to roll out of it. She loves putting on other people's shoes and walking around saying "Ri Ri wearing daddy's shoes!" She still loves art projects, and she can even draw a circle now, which makes her sooo proud.
Me and my big 21 month old! Remind me not to go out in the early evening in shorts unless I want to get so. many. sand fly bites. Ugh. Oh well, at least the picture is cute.
Riley has started to show a little bit of interest in potty training this month! For a while she would sit on the potty, but nothing would happen. I wasn't sure she totally understood the concept, so we weren't pushing it at all. Then one day I decided to try something... I got a clear jar and filled it with marshmallows, and put it in the bathroom. I told her if she peed in the potty she could have 5 mini marshmallows, and low and behold, she sat right down and peed in the potty. And the next day she pooped in the potty! Totally was not expecting that! We're taking it slowly and sort of following her lead for a while though. I'm waiting for a few more signs that she's fully ready before we jump right into it full force.
It's funny the things that stick in her mind... Every morning we give her a gummy vitamin, and there are only red, yellow, and orange vitamins. I once asked her what color she wanted, and she requested green and purple, and I told her there were no green or purple ones. So now every single time I ask her if she wants a vitamin, she immediately rattles off "no green one, no purple one." Every time we play with playdoh she tellls me "no eating playdoh" and when we brush her teeth, she says "get tongue out of the way!" She LOVES watching "Ri Ri videos" and will do pretty much anything you ask if you let her watch a video of herself (how do you think I got those pigtails in her hair!?!)
Her sleep is AWESOME. Every night we read her a fairytale before bed, kiss her goodnight, and leave the room and she goes to sleep in her big girl bed. She almost never tries to get out, and never fights bed time. She goes to sleep between 7 and 7:30, and wakes around 6, sometimes earlier, sometimes later. We put a gate at her door to make sure she's not roaming the house in the middle of the night (even though she doesn't usually get up), and in the morning she calls out "daddy!? move the gate? daddy!" and when he goes to get her she rattles off "go see mama? go see jack jack? mama sleeping? baby sleeping?" She naps for 2-3 hours every day usually, and she LOVES waking up and running out to see me. And her bed head is AWESOME these days.
She is still obsessed with peanut butter sandwiches, and loves spaghetti and noodles and omelettes and baked beans. She is a pro at using her fork and spoon. We've started trying to get rid of sippy cups and move to a regular cup, so she's been doing great so far! Getting rid of her paci on the other hand, that's a different story. Hopefully by her second birthday, which was my goal, so we have a few months.
Size-wise, she's about 26 pounds, wearing mostly all 18-24 month and 2T clothes, although some 18 month old things still fit her... sort of. She's size 6 shoe I believe. Ya know, just in case you wanted her stats. She is the best big sister ever, and loves Jackson so so much. She's kind and gentle, she likes to try and play with him, and wants him to come with her wherever she goes. She wants to hold him and lay with him and do tummy time with him, she pats his head and offers him his paci when he cries. The two of them together just makes me so so happy. I dare you to watch this video and not want to have like 10 babies. :)
This month Riley also developed her first real fears, and there are a couple of them. (1) She's afraid of me taking a shower. She developed this fear all of a sudden, and she absolutely loses it when I try to take a shower. I've tried a ton of things to ease her fears, and nothing has worked, so in the end I take showers while Mark is looking after her or while she's sleeping. (2) She's all of a sudden afraid of draining the bath tub water. She used to like pulling out the plug, and now she gets so scared and she cries and shakes and hates it. So we pull her out of the tub, and drain the water after she's in bed!
Happy 21 months baby bug!!
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