20 months

Dear Little Miss J,
I think I might have skipped 18 months, so we'll talk about 20 months instead. You continue to be most entertaining except when you are crying in my face at 3:00 a.m. because you are unable to fall back asleep independently. Luckily, you try to make up for it during the day with your cuteness.

Your vocabulary continues to grow by leaps and bounds, and you will try to mimic almost any word that we say - including the four letter ones (Bad Daddy). You've got "yes" and "no" down pretty well, but sometimes I think you just say one or the other despite not understanding the question. We typically set the baseline by asking if you want to go night-night, to which the answer is always "no," with vigorous head shaking I might add. Dad figures if you understand that, then the fact that you said "yes," when asked if you want something else, like a camel ride, you must actually want that. It's clearly not scientific methodology, but you're not even two years old yet. Yesterday, your new words included - "giraffe," "watermelon," "broccoli," and "carousel."

If I ask you your name, you will say "oo-ee-et." You know how to ask for, "cheese," "crackers," "Elmo" (Sesame Street) and "Why" (Super Why). You have recently started playing with your American Girl baby doll. I did find you pile driving baby's head on the kitchen floor the other day, which made me question your desire for a little sibling. But at least when it was over, you patted her on the head and said, "nice." When you are being naughty, we ask if you are a good girl or bad girl - to which you typically reply, "good girl." Then I am forced to explain to you that actually you aren't being all that good and good girls don't behave like that.

Your typical strategy for not doing what you are asked to do, whether it is clean up your crayons, change your diaper, or go night night, is to hide under the table. You love to go for walks, so you'll roll the umbrella stroller out of the closet, bring it to me, and yell, "walk." Other favorite things to do include wearing Mommy's shoes, swimming, splash pads, and dancing. You just learned a new dance move, which is hard to describe, but is much better than your previous ones. You like, hip-hop, country, and trance/electronica/house (or whatever it is called) music, but you aren't so interested in gangster rap - which is fine by me. Yesterday, you and Dad did the chicken dance for me.

I must say, I absolutely love to watch you have a good time. But I hate the fallout, when it is time to leave. You are always having so much fun, that screaming and kicking is involved, when we tell you all done. I guess you'll figure it out someday.

Best close this one out. It's almost 6:00 a.m. and I'm blogging on borrowed time. Any minute now, I expect you will come trotting down the hall into the living room with crazy hair, rubbing your eyes, asking for milk and Elmo.

Love you to the moon and back,
Mommy