Calendar Girl - Eighteen Months

Well hello, little blog.  I know I've neglected you terribly, but it's all in the name of good things.  Finding time to blog has been crazy hard, but I couldn't let Ruby turn 19 months before I documented her 18th, right???

Eighteen months...  Holy cow.  That's a half birthday!  My baby is one and a half!!!  I know, I know, I'm always shocked by the passage of time, but really?  How'd she get so grown up?????

Because grow up, she did.  This girl seems like such a KID.  For one thing, her vocabulary is through the roof now.  New words this month (well, the ones I remembered to write down) include: school, yarn, yeah, corn, read, please, leaves, water (wa-wa), baby, towel, up, clothes, bow, ride, rhino, yum, keys, bra, gourd, dog, beans (which comes out as "means" - adorable), feed (which she says as "ah-ree" - weird), dance, and noodle.  She is much more into repeating things we say than she ever has been.  Which is cool, but also means our language has had to clean up a bit...

She has many loves right now.  "Read!" is her favorite word, and she will grab a book anytime and insist you read it to her.  Which, of course, I love.  We read a lot of Halloween books, since it was that time of year.  One of my faves, being Goodnight Goon.  In the story, the goon rides a ghost.  Which leads to Ruby's other favorite word - "RIDE!"  She is obsessed with the concept of riding.  Horses must be ridden, stuffed animal cows must be ridden, the dog must be ridden (yes, she really tries to do this every chance she gets).  She even climbed on Grandma one evening, when she was relaxing on the floor, and started yelling, "Ride!  Ride!!!".  It's pretty hilarious.

Look at that wacky hair...

Also topping her loves list?  Leaves!!!  She's not loving riding in the stroller so much (she wants to walk/run), but give her a leaf for each hand?  She'll do whatever you want!  She also gets really excited when she hears the landscapers with leaf blowers.  "Guy?  Leaves?  Guy?  Leaves?" over and over.  She's also been super into coloring, and actually scribbles now, instead of just stippling her crayons on the page.  And while she already loved music and dancing, she got introduced to "What Does the Fox Say" and is obsessed.  If you ask her what a fox says, she replies, "Dance".  Ha.

Caught mid-dance.

As far as toddlers go, she takes the cake.  We're still riding the toddler honeymoon of awesomeness.  As of now, Ruby still does not throw tantrums.  Maybe this is because she has really good communication skills?  It takes a lot to ruffle her feathers, too.  She does have her sassy moments, and she's a thrower when she doesn't like/want something.  She'll just pick up the nearest object and chuck it.  Or if you ask her to give you something, and she doesn't want to, she'll chuck that, too.

Ruby also has this weird habit of kind of freaking out if she thinks she's in trouble.  Like, when she does something she knows she's not supposed to, she often will immediately shut down and cover her face with her hands.  Or she'll go over and turn on Mr. G's Xbox, but if you ask her to turn it off, she gets upset (like, scared, not like mad) and tries to run away or hide behind one of us.  It is bizzare.

At 18 months, Ruby's starting to get more and more into pretend play, and using her toys.  She loves to pretend to cook, both at home and school.  She loves on all of her animals, and likes to put the baby dolls at volunteering to bed (she tucks them in with blankets).  She also loves her Little People bus, and Playmobil 1*2*3 girl and horse; she plays with them every day.  She also loves balls - throwing light up ones, and learning how to kick a beach ball with Dada.

At her 18 month well-baby visit, we found out that our girl has done a huge amount of growing!  Jumping from 25% all around, to 50% for weight at 24lbs 8oz, and 75% for height at 32"!!!  I had a feeling she'd done a lot of growing, but whoa!  Baby girl is wearing mostly 24 month stuff now, but can still fit into 18mo Carter's stuff.  Conversely, I've been buying her 2T as well, and just cuffing everything, lol.  She still wears a size 4 shoe, but she's about to outgrow those as well (finally).  I tried to enter her in the See Kai Run casting call this month, as they needed models her shoe size, but they told me they couldn't take her because her feet don't match her age!  Haha, she is a littlefoot.  =)

Basically, at 18 months Ruby is amazing.  Just like she was last month, and the one before.  And just like she will be the next.  I don't even have time to mourn her growing up, really, because each new month is a different kind of fun.  I am SO excited to see the magic of the holidays through her eyes, and to see what she is into next!