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| at the Phoenix Zoo |
Charlotte's baby stage has gone by in a flash. I can't believe how grown up she has gotten, especially lately. She is definitely a toddler and not a baby anymore. At 18 months, Charlotte is 26 lbs, 35(!) inches tall, and her head is 48 cm.
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| snuggling her favorite little blanket |
She is tall, usually eats more than her older sister, climbs on everything especially chairs, and is getting more sure-footed every month. Her blond hair has really started growing lately, and she has the sweetest baby curls. She just got her last molar, and her canines are coming soon, I think. She sucks her left thumb, and she carries around a little blanket with silky edges.
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| She often climbs into this shopping cart and gets stuck. |
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| climbing at the playground |
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| The swings are her favorite. |
She loves, loves, loves books, songs (especially Wee Sing Children's Songs and Fingerplays), and the zoo. Honey Nut Cheerios, peanut butter on a spoon, crackers, strawberries, broccoli, beans, and cookies are all favorites. She loves baths, washing her hands, and playing in water; eats crayons and loves to draw; loves nursery rhymes; and thinks drinking water by herself from small bathroom cups is the best thing ever. Every time we pass flowers she wants to pick one, and every time we pass by gravel she wants to pick up rocks.
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| favorite cereal |
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| seeing the zebras at the Phoenix Zoo |
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| picking flowers |
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| enjoying the water fountain and licking the nasty water off her fingers |
She is talking like crazy and will repeat anything and everything. Recently, she started repeating us to "say" a prayer. The first time we tried this, I had her repeat my words one at a time. When I said "for," however, she said "five." I guess she thought we were counting? Charlotte just learned to count to 11, and she practices all the time. She also tries to sing her ABC's, and she can sing several chunks of the song pretty well. She has an awesome memory, and she picks up new words like crazy. She knows most of her body parts, and will tell you just where to kiss if she ever gets bonked ("bonk-a-chin" and "bonk-a-toe" are a couple favorite phrases).
Charlotte knows several animal sounds, but if she doesn't know what sound something makes, she just says that it says "hee-haw" like a donkey. Matt asked her recently what sound a bell makes, and she told him hee-haw. She has really started stringing words together, and she often uses 3 or 4 word phrases like "walk, outside, mail" if she wants to go check the mail, or "monkey climbing trees" when she wanted to talk about the monkeys we saw at the zoo. She definitely knows what she wants and gets upset when she knows you understand but won't comply with her requests. I can tell her two-year-old independence is starting to creep in.
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favorite reading spot
She is usually surrounded by all the books, which she loves to pull off the shelf, but this was first thing in the morning, so she didn't have a chance to pull them all down yet. |
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| Charlotte loves looking at books on her own. |
She loves to do puzzles and is getting really good at the ones we have. She has started to pretend a little bit, like when she uses the toy stethoscope as a phone or pretends the umbrella stroller, folded up, is a vacuum and will roll it back and forth across the rug. She is a super messy eater, very intentionally, and will throw and smear food like crazy. She also won't keep a bib on, so every time she eats she has to be undressed down to her diaper during the meal. She especially likes to smear peanut butter on her chest and belly and sometimes in her hair. She has cracked a sippy cup because it got thrown a few too many times.
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| favorite dress-up clothes: firefighter hat and "glass slippers" |
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| typical peanut butter smeared chest at lunch |
Charlotte loves gorillas, especially since her obsession with the book
Goodnight, Gorilla. She loves to snuggle the big stuffed gorilla we have. She currently can't get enough of the book
Duck on a Bike and thinks the goat eating trash is endlessly amusing.
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| This picture is from a couple of months ago, when Charlotte's Goodnight, Gorilla obsession was in full swing. She still loves that big gorilla. |
She falls asleep much better for Daddy lately, but she is usually more of a Mama's girl when it isn't time to sleep. She is obsessed with the moon and whether it is day or night outside. She is always happy to brush her teeth, or at least to chew on her toothbrush. She can't understand why we don't eat treats much more often, and she has a tremendous sweet tooth. She drinks mostly water, and will occasionally take sips of juice, milk, or lemonade but usually won't drink much (unless it's chocolate milk, which she chugs). She also knows what chocolate milkshakes are, knows how to ask for one, and likes them a little too much.
Chalk is fun to eat and draw with, pencils work great on paper or on the tile floor, and crayons and play doh are interesting to taste. Chapstick is great for licking off, especially the strawberry kind. The Itsy Bitsy Spider gets her excited, and Teach Me to Walk in the Light settles her down. She loves
Finding Nemo and
SuperWhy!, and she'll usually keep bringing you books to read, one after another, until you tell her that's all we can read right now. She loves to look at books on her own too.
I could go on and on (obviously) about this sweet, spunky, vivacious, smart, beautiful little girl, but I think that's enough for one post. We sure do love our Charlotte girl!
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| first official day of Nursery |
