Our baby Ariana is 18 months. She seems to have grown up a lot recently so I want to write it down before I blink. In the last six months she has changed from a total baby to almost a kid. Almost. I'm holding on to the baby as much as I can!
Ariana is independent and this little girl knows what she wants. She talks a ton, adding new words all the time and repeating a lot. In the last month or so she started talking in short sentences with 2 or 3 words. The most frequently word is no. She started watching a few cartoons and grabs the remote and asks for "Memo" (Elmo), Cuppord (Clifford) and she calls Curious George "ooo ooo ah ah". She loves brushing her teeth and takes her sisters' toothbrushes out of their bathroom and follows them around the house saying "brushhhhh." She names and requests all of her favorite foods (cheese, milk, bar (Clif kids or Lara bars), nana (banana), eggs, cakes (pancakes), ham, berries. If she gets in the way or knocks something over she says, "oh soweee mama."
Her favorite toys are a hand-me-down white dog that you pull on a leash, all the books in the house, magnetic puzzle that has doors that open with pieces inside, all the ride-on toys (Rody, rocking horse, car). She can identify and say several body parts (nose, ears, mouth, teeth, neck, feet, hands, hair and eyes) and sometimes pokes me in the eye.
This girl is a climber. Much more than I remember her sisters doing at this age. There isn't a set of stairs or ladder to a slide that is too tall for her. No fear with this one. She climbs on top of our tall kitchen island stools every chance she gets. Same for the dining room table and back of the couch. She thinks its the funniest thing ever to climb up on top of me or Marcus on the couch and fall down. She says, "so funny mama."
Ariana is so in love with her big sisters and the feeling is mutual (most of the time). As soon as their door opens in the morning, she runs in and climbs on their beds with books and they love reading to her. Walking to school to pick them up is her favorite part of the day and she walks home holding both of their hands. She loves to do whatever they are doing, including playing with Legos and drawing with markers so it's a tough balance between letting her join in and keeping my stress level in check.
On a good day, she sleeps 7:30-6:30. Sometimes it's 5:30am. So early. She takes one nap in the afternoon at around 1.
We love this girl to the moon and back. We are so lucky for our rainbow baby after the storms and sadness before we were blessed with her.
