Calendar Girl - Twenty Two Months

Bam!  Ruby is still twenty two months, so with this post, I'm caught up!  At least, on calendar girl posts, that is.  Still, I'll take it!

At twenty two months, Ruby is all grown up.  She prefers to walk over being carried, or riding in the stroller, and has the stamina to go a long way.  At this point, we don't even bring our stroller into the hospital anymore, when we go to volunteering.  She just doesn't need it!

She also talks like a big kid.  Ruby is speaking mostly in sentences now.  One of her favorites is, "Ruby Jo ready to eat dinner?".  And she still often speaks in questions.  Hilariously, if you repeat her question back to her, like, "Oh, you're ready to eat?" she says, "Ok!!!".  Like it was your idea in the first place!  She's pretty smart, it makes us laugh every time.

Cheeseball!  And I kind of love that sun artifact, because it means there was sun!

Also hilariously, she is becoming interested in the alphabet.  But she doesn't call the letters ABCs like we would.  Nope, she calls them "RBYs".  I mean, of course she does, right?  Hilarious.  She also has a small obsession with number 9.  I'm not sure what that is about, but she often takes the tv remote (which she calls "telephone" - actual phones, she only calls "phone"), and says, "Ruby Jo finding number nine?" then pushes the button.

Yes, she still calls herself Ruby Jo.  Which we love.  But she also started calling herself "Rubes"!  As in, "Oh, Rubes!".  She'll drop something on the floor, "Oh, Rubes!" or do something funny, "Silly Rubes!".  It cracks us up so much!

One of the biggest thing that happened in Ruby's 22nd month, is that she got her first stomach flu.  Let me just say, I am so glad that it took this long before it happened.  Let me also say that I definitely would like for that to not happen again anytime soon.  I never thought about it, but toddlers can't really aim for a barf bucket.  And said toddler happened to be in my bed.  And had happened to have a huge bowl of raspberries and blueberries that night, too.  Talk about a mess.  But my poor girl was so scared, and so upset to have to have a bath at midnight!  Thankfully, it only lasted about 24 hours, but to this day she will randomly say, "No barf!".  Also, the bad news is that I got it a few days later.  Ugh!

Also this month, Ruby got a new baby cousin!  Whom we didn't get to see for a couple of weeks, because of course, he was born the same day the flupocalypse hit our house.  But Ruby was quite excited to see baby Donovan (aka Van).  She was very curious about him, didn't mind me holding him, and thought it was funny that he had to get his diaper changed.  Ruby is also very interested in the babies at the hospital when we go to volunteer.  Once she heard a mama shushing her baby, so now whenever she hears a baby cry, she says, "Sh! Sh! Sh!".  Too cute.

At 22 months, one of Ruby's favorite activities (much to her daddy's dismay), is to go "shop shop".  She had cabin fever when we were stuck in the house with the flu, and asked us to go shop shop often. This means that she's quite pleasant to take along to the grocery store, or Target, or wherever we need to go.  And a big bonus is that she usually remembers the things we need (when I can't!).

Ruby's favorite toys are still her "buddies" (stuffed animals), and her play kitchen.  She is becoming more interested in puzzles, and anything with shapes (she recognizes triangle, circle, and moon).  She wants to "color color" all the time, though usually that means she dictates to us what she wants us to draw.  And usually it's cats.  Ha!  Another big favorite of hers right now, is climbing.  She is finally able to climb up on the couch, the chair in her room, and ottomans.  She thinks it's very funny and likes to climb the same thing over and over.  Thankfully, she is still her cautious self, and if I tell her she may not climb something because it isn't safe, she obliges.  She now tells me every time the dishwasher is open, that the dishwasher is not for climbing.  Atta girl!

The downside to this month, has been sleep.  Ruby had a cold right before she got the flu.  With the cold, she couldn't sleep and was miserable - unless she was in our bed.  Then she got the flu, and I needed to keep an eye on her (she actually had been sleeping and almost choked on her vomit the first time she threw up, which scared the heck out of me).  And then, of course, she got used to sleeping with us, and wasn't going back.  We also discovered that she developed a fear of the dark.  I guess this is the age that toddlers start developing fears like these?  And one night, I turned the light out before she was asleep and she freaked out.  I honestly don't really mind cosleeping with her, but Mr. G probably feels otherwise.  Our bed is just not big enough for three, so he usually ends up bailing out and sleeping on the couch!  He is ok with it, because he can see how scared she is, but obviously we need to come up with a better solution so that everyone can be happy and comfortable.

Oh, and before I end this post, I have to include this pic.  Ruby is doing what she calls "creepin'".  As in, "I'm creepin' on you!"  She'll creep on us all the time when we're relaxing or making dinner or whatever.  It is freaking hilarious, and I don't want to forget it!  I have no idea how she comes up with this stuff!

Love this kid more and more every day!

Calendar Girl - Twenty One Months

Woohoo!  Hooray for nap-time efficiency!  Maybe, just maybe, I will get myself all caught up. ;)

I'm seriously dying over this picture.  It's like, "Another month older?  Oh, man!".  I kind of feel the same way.  I just can't believe what a grown-up my little lady is becoming.  Especially with her little pony tail, she just seems so much more kid than baby.  Stop it, Ruby!

Ruby has become such a little love.  She still has much love for her "buddies".  This month, I caught her "feeding" them bites of her food, or drinks from her sippy.  She even tried feeding the doggie head of her sippy bites of pancake!  It was pretty adorable.  And, be still my mama heart!  On January 7th (yes, I wrote the date down), Ruby said, "I wuv you" back to me and gave me a hug.  Yes, I nearly cried.  Isn't that just a day that every mother dreams of?  Dream come true.

On the flip side...  There's this ^.  The "stinky eye".  Ruby has become master of the stink eye!!!  Actually, it's not so bad.  She does it purely for comic purposes, as she knows it's sure to get a laugh out of us.  My brother thought it was SO hilarious, that he really just couldn't contain himself with laughter.  Which, of course, made her do it over and over, and now she calls it "Tony stinky-eye", after my brother!

This month, Ruby has been very into playing with her toys (which has been awesome for us!).  All of her new Christmas toys are a huge hit.  The play kitchen being the biggest!  She plays with it every day.  Her favorites to cook are "eggies for Daddy" and "pizzie" (pizza).  I won't lie - the play food gets everywhere, and it drives me nuts, but she has so much fun!

Other loves in the toy department are her Little People farm/farmer, the deer family from her Playmobil 1*2*3 park (which she calls mommy/daddy/Ruby reindeer), and the books "Little Owl Lost" and "The Little Engine that Could".  Back to those reindeer.  We lost mommy reindeer for like a week, and it was such an ordeal.  She looked everywhere for that thing.  We looked everywhere.  We could not find it.  Then one day I found it randomly under the stove (?!?) and all was well with the world.  

We saw about 8 million "hairplanes" on this day...

If last month was for verbs, this month was for adjectives.  Ruby's been labeling everything with colors (purple jacket, white car).  She also frequently tells us when things are wet, and asks to dry them.  Her longtime love of helping me empty the dishwasher is the perfect example.  If she takes out a pan and it still has water droplets on it, she tells me it's "all wet" and asks for a towel to dry it.  Also, when I get out of the shower, "Mommy all wet".  She's also started noticing shiny things, and has a favorite hairbow that she's labeled "shiny bow", which she asks for frequently.

Those baby blues!

As she puts more and more words together, she also refers to herself in the third person a lot to tell us things she wants or is doing.  Even better, she now usually calls herself "Ruby Jo".  As in, "Ruby Jo eat food?"  "Ruby Jo help Mommy?"  "Ruby Jo animal cracker?".  It is pretty darn adorable.  One morning she woke up out of a sound sleep, whine/yelled "Ruby JO!!!" while stretching, then just fell back to sleep.  Hahaha.

Ruby continues to recognize feelings.  This month, it was scared.  At the hospital when we are volunteering, if a stranger (especially a man) comes to close to her, or out of a nearby door suddenly, she runs to me saying, "scared!".  If cars are moving too close to her (like in a parking lot), she will startle, then snuggle into me and say, "scared".  And when she hears our neighbor's dog, which is a lot, since our townhouse shares a wall with them, she tells me, "scared Rudy" (that's his name).  It kind of makes me sad that she is scared (well, except of the cars, I like that self-preservation instinct!), but I'm glad that she's able to tell me about it!

Speaking of her ability to communicate, I think both we and she are really lucky that she is so competent in that department.  I may kick myself for even typing this out, but temper tantrums are just not a part of Ruby's world.  I think this is hugely in part because she's able to tell us her needs/wants.  Of course, the other part would be temperament, and I guess we won the toddler lottery there.  It takes a lot to ruffle Ruby's feathers.  And I've been employing all of my Montessori teacher tricks to help her feel empowered, but not just giving her what she wants all the time.  I try to really limit my "no"s with her, instead telling her something she CAN do (like, instead of "no, don't hit the dog" I'd tell her, "you can use your gentle hands on the dog").  This seems to work really well with her, as does distraction.  Of course, she has plenty of time to be a toddler, and I'm kind of just waiting for the other shoe to drop, but so far I haven't had the experience of carrying her screaming out of a public place. ;)  She's generally pretty chill.

I try to only "work" when Ruby is sleeping, but she often sees finished things I've made, or I'll make something for her as a sample/prototype.  I also am getting quite the addiction to handmade goodies that other people have made (thank goodness for trades!), and sometimes participate in swaps.  Ruby's got a good eye for the handmade, and this month, she has started to frequently ask me, "Mommy make?  Mommy make you?".  If I didn't make the item, and I know the name of the child whose mama did make it, I usually tell her that.  Like, "No, Mommy didn't make that for you, Annelise's mommy did."  That particular example is my favorite, because she pronounces Annelise as, "Animal-eese".  "Animal-eese mommy make you???".  She gets more excited when other people's mommies make her stuff, and she loooooooooves getting packages in the mail.  Oops!

I think it's safe to say, that 21 months is kind of my favorite age.  I know, I say that every month.  But really.  She talks so much now, gets excited about things.  The older she gets, she just gets more fun!  I sure don't want her to grow up too fast, but I also can't wait to see what she does tomorrow.

P.S.  Ruby's adorable fox collar is from Shop Mini Chuck (https://www.etsy.com/shop/minichuck), and her sweet little hairbow is from Un Petit Meow (http://www.unpetitmeow.bigcartel.com/)

Calendar Girl - Twenty Months

Holy cow.  I am more behind than ever!  Yes, blog, I'm still here.  We're just so busy living life, I guess!  Just like last time, Ruby is actually older now (22mo!), but I have catch-up to do.  So here's her 20 month post, and if I get the chance, I just might schedule 21 mo for tomorrow.  Ha!

Also just like last time?  My chalkboard is absent, and these pictures are doing double-duty (she was modeling some hair accessories for me).  But they're cute, and captured her nicely, so I don't mind going with it.

So.....  The biggest thing that happened in Ruby's 20th month?  BIG GIRL BED!!!  I'd like to elaborate on that in another post, but the basic jist is, Ruby didn't want to fall asleep without snuggling in our bed for hours first, which wasn't really working for us.  Mr. G suggested we convert her crib to a toddler bed, so that even if we had to be in there with her, it'd be a lot easier to give her the closeness she needed without a crib rail.  I was skeptical, but it turned out to work really well!  She loves the idea of her big girl bed, helped me pick out "big girl sheets" (toddler sheets from Land of Nod), and loves her little toddler pillow.  I never would have thought we'd have a child so young in a bed, but...  Hey!  It works for us, and as a bonus, she's been taking 3ish hour naps!

Christmas fell across this month, and with it, Ruby's obsession with reindeer.  We also realized that the season lent itself well to Ruby recognizing the shapes "star", and "heart".  First shapes, woohoo!  She is also way into colors, and recognizes red, blue (though she sometimes mistakes it for purple), purple, green, white, brown, pink, yellow, and orange.  Oh, and gold.  She loves gold.  All of this color recognition (and expression, she can label the colors as well), kind of hit us out of the blue.  Suddenly she just knew them all!  Whoa!

This month she also has started putting words together.  Like, "more water", "Braidy get down".  Again, her accumulation of new words is just too much to keep track of, but some of our favorites include "opo" (open), "sit" (which she pronounces "sh*t"), and "fox" (which sounds like another dirty word starting with f).  So, I guess our favorites are the ones that sound like curse words?  Ha!  It also seems like most of her new words this month are verbs.  Nouns are so last month.

Doll-baby

One day this month, I was working on the dining room table with my cutting mat on it.  The mat is basically a big ruler, and Ruby walked right up, pointed at the numbers, and said "numbers!".  Ok...  Not sure how she knew that, but she did it several other times, and at other times that she saw numbers.  So I guess she recognizes them as a category?  She also recognizes the quantity two.  Like if she has two crackers, or two sippy cups.  She doesn't know the symbol, of course, but she knows what two is.  

A symbol that she does recognize?  "R".  Makes sense, since it's "her" letter.  She points out both upper and lowercase.  There's an uppercase one on the wall in her room that she will walk by and point to and say, "r"!  And she also finds the "purple R" in the bathtub with her toy letters.  This month we went to an event at our local Land of Nod (when we got the sheets), where we got to make yarn wrapped letters, so now she has a lowercase "r" too, which she calls her "golden r", since the yarn is spun with a gold shimmer.  She picked it out herself, and is in love with it.  It's so funny to see her preferences and opinions coming out!

I was surprised to realize that she also recognizes & names feelings now.  This seems like such an abstract concept to me!  But she shivered and said, "cold!".  And then also told us, "happy!" and will ask, "Mama happy?".  She consistently has used these words appropriately, so I'm pretty certain she actually recognizes that feelings have names.

At twenty months (that number is crazy, by the way!), Ruby's biggest love is her "buddies".  Buddies being stuffed animals.  They're probably her most played with toy.  Piles of them crop up everywhere, and she just wants to love on them.  At night we tuck her in with one under each arm.  And finally, we can't forget her living stuffed animal - Braidy.  Ruby is still completely smitten with her, and this month has been learning to feed her.  Her (lack of) coordination gets in the way, but she carries the cup of food with help over to the bowl, we pour, then she returns the cup to the pantry.  She absolutely LOVES this, and it will be fun to let feeding the dog be her "job" once she gets more control of her motor skills.

Oh, Ruby Jo.  I feel like I see the back of your head all to often now, as you're running into grownupedness.  It's a slippery slope to two now!