Calendar Girl - Nineteen Months

Soooooo..... yeah.  Ruby is actually already 20 months old.  Oops!  Things were so crazy with the holidays, and they still are, as I'm crocheting my buns off getting ready for another sale in my Instagram shop, @spottedpony_handmade.  Basically every naptime is consumed by work.  But since Ruby is growing up so fast, I really don't want time to go by without recording it.  So you get 19mo today, and 20mo hopefully soon.  Also?  Her 19mo pics doubled as our Christmas card pics, and I didn't even bust out my chalkboard.  Whatever.

I feel like 19 months was actually pretty similar to 18 months.  Ruby continues to be awesome, and blow our socks off with her smarts.  She did have a pretty big accomplishment this month, though.  She learned how to go down the stairs on her own!

I left her with Daddy for my longest stretch ever (about 6 hours), and while I was gone, he taught her how to back down the stairs.  This is HUGE, as we live in a townhouse with 38 steps from top to bottom.  It is so so so so nice to be able to actually carry things down the stairs with me now!  Ruby is very cautious about it, and sometimes even drops to her belly and starts backing up when she's still about 5 feet from the top of the stairs.  Hilarious.

This month, Ruby also got to attend her first "concert".  Caspar Babypants performed a special private show at her school, and she even got an autographed CD afterward!  Some of the extremely rowdy behavior of older children in attendance made her pretty shy and reserved during the show.  But I'm pretty certain she enjoyed watching the "guy" sing, because she makes me play the CD over and over (and has favorite songs).

Ruby also went to the indoor playground, Wiggleworks, for the first time with her BFF, and played until she could barely keep her eyes open.  She's not a very physical kid, so I was pretty impressed with how much she seemed to enjoy herself.

Ruby's vocabulary is off the charts now.  I honestly stopped being able to keep track of all of her new words.  There were just too many!  She doesn't pronounce the "s" sound at all.  She either omits it from a word, or changes it to "sh".  Which makes words like "sit" rather funny...  Some of my other faves from this month are snuggle (nuggle), shampoo (chappoo!), and goat (goke) thanks to her favorite Busha leggings.  Ruby is also starting to link words together, too, which makes "goke booty" pretty darn hilarious/adorable!

The trick to taking her picture is giving her something to hold.

At 19 months, Ruby has a bunch of teeth.  How many and where?  I can't really say.  She's doesn't really let us in there to inspect.  I know she has all the molars she should have right now.  Brushing teeth is kind of a battle, but she likes to do it at the same time as us.  Also, Mr. G is waaaaay better at getting in there than I am.  She seems more amenable to him doing it.

Also this month, I realized that Ruby's hair is long enough to put in a ponytail!!!  I was so excited the day I figured this out, but HOLY COW does it make her look like a KID.  Adorable, yes, but so grown up!  Bring me a kleenex!

Ruby is still a great eater.  She did surprise us a few times this month by simply not wanting to eat at a mealtime, even things that are her faves (like homemade pizza!).  But I guess this is pretty typical of toddlers, and she always seems to get right back on track, so, whatever.  She's super loving broccoli, the aforementioned pizza, cheese, blueberries (as always), pancakes, and pretty much any fruit.  We decided to hold off on giving her anymore strawberries for a while.  I have a strawberry allergy, but she seemed to tolerate them fine at first.  After some pretty horrible diaper rashes, we decided to table them for a while.  Not sure if that's the culprit, but maybe?  We'll reintroduce later.  The only things Ruby really doesn't like is yogurt and raw tomatoes.  She doesn't love meat, but will usually eat some.  I thank my lucky stars that I have a kid who eats!

This month, I entered a hairbow swap online that was Disney-themed, so Ruby got introduced to the Little Mermaid.  I am a kid myself, so I owned the DVD and showed her the cover.  She became obsessed with "mimi" (mermaid), and asked me to "read" the DVD several times.  Sweet girl, thought it was a book!  She still doesn't watch tv, but I put it on for her one day anyway.  She wasn't that interested, which wasn't really surprising, since she really doesn't know "how" to watch tv.  Still, with repeated requests to read the cover, we decided to get her a little board book, which she loves.  She also now recognizes the Starbuck's logo as a mermaid, which she calls "coffee mimi".

Ha!  This face!  We get this a lot.

Ruby continues to love her school, her doggie, dancing, and helping at volunteering.  We continue to have an absolute blast watching her grow and learn.  She continually blows us away with the things she knows and her little mannerisms.  As hard as it is to know she's getting closer and closer to two, it's pretty great to get to see what's to come with her, since she's so fantastic right now!  I'm still absolutely loving this age, and so happy to be this girl's mama. =)