Miss 20 Months

Dear Jayde,

Over the past few months you have grown up so much! It is amazing the words you know how to say, and the phrases we say that you understand. You love your sand/water table that is on our back porch. We drained all the water so now both sides are sand. You enjoy climbing in it as well as flailing sand all over our porch. You love sidewalk chalk and we’ve had to tell you multiple times you can’t draw on the house… so you proceed to walk over to our large rocks and draw your pictures there instead. You will also lay down on the sidewalk and let us trace your silhouette. You love your teapot set and pretend to pour and drink the tea as well as eat the little plastic pastries and say, “Mmmm” afterwards. You enjoy playing with your dolls by having them drink from bottles, laying them down in their ‘crib’ and saying “Nigh Night”. You also brush their hair and share your food with them. It is so cute watching you walk around with your babies and give them kisses, and seeing you sleep with your arm around them.

Your favorite books are the Counting duck book – the part where it says, “OH NO!! 5 Bees!”, The Alphabet and Heads book, as well as the new counting ladybug book your nana bought you. You can sort of count to three and will say “Doo, Doo, Dee” as you count different objects. You know most of your shapes, and we are now working on colors.

You love watching movies so I've had to make sure to not let you watch more than one each day. Your favorites are Dumbo, Snow White, 101 Dalmations, Little Einsteins, and Happy Feet

You are a pretty good eater and know what you do and do not like. You also know when we say you have to eat something first before you can have something else – which makes you glare at us then take the smallest imaginable bite and then try not to spit it out. Then we give you what you wanted, sometimes you also end up spitting out the bite we wanted you to eat in the first place. You do not like trying new things and pretty much refuse to do so, unless we get you involved and help us while we make it. This makes you more willing to try the new food which generally means you lick it (after it passes the smush test – if it smushes up easily then you don’t want to try it). You’ve been able to drink from a regular cup for awhile which has been fun to watch.

Foods you love: eggs with cheese, ham, oatmeal, strawberries, yogurt covered raisins, buttered toast, bagels w/cream cheese, pancakes, waffles, french toast, smoothies, mac-n-cheese, rolls, chocolate milk, muffins, cookies and chips (obviously), peaches

You are so energetic and talk all day long! If you want to get somewhere you run. You love jumping on the bed, climbing on everything, and exploring the outdoors. You will also hide behind things like our bathroom curtain and say hide while we try to find you. You love to tickle us and absolutely adore Lux (your nanny’s little girl who is 5 months old). Every day when I take you over there you run over to her and give her huge hugs!

You are such a happy and loving little girl. We only deal with tantrums every couple days when we’re not letting you do something you really want to do or when you can’t physically do something that you want. They only last about 15 seconds until you move onto the next thing. Shopping carts with the cars only last about 10 minutes before you want to get out and run around. I then stick you in the top section of the cart and try to distract you from the fact that you’re strapped down by giving you things to put in the cart (which make it in most of the time).

Other things that are so cute to see you do are seeing you wear my dangly earrings and running to look at yourself in the mirror. Sticking stickers on your hands, cheeks, and baby's cheeks. Rocking like bull rider on your rocking-horse. Giving people 'knuckles' and going "Poww" at the end for the explosion. Love watching you play in your bubble baths, and especially laying on your back. You love wrestling with your dad and riding on his back, as well as trying on his and my shoes all the time. It's so cute that you're so proud of yourself when you can walk with them across the room. You love throwing balls down the stairs to us and laugh hysterically when we pretend not to catch them. You also love sorting buttons.

You are a total champ when I do your hair, and will just sit there and be super patient while I try to get elastics in. I honestly don’t know what to do with your hair most of the time because if nothing is in it, you won’t be able to see since it’s grown past your eyes. I don’t want to cut it, but let it go behind your bangs but that’s not working out so well yet… we’ll see.

You are so helpful with laundry and will move the clothes from washer to dryer. You also like to carry my swiffer all over the house and pretend mop. Whenever I’m fixing something with a screw driver or other tool you always try to mimic me with it afterward before I put it away. When you want us to go somewhere with you, you’ll grab us by our finger and pull.

You love my iPhone and will play with some of the apps I’ve downloaded for you. It amazes me how quickly you were able to learn how to unlock it yourself and slide the screen to the one that has all your games. One of your favorite things I going through the pictures and playing the home videos I have on there.

Whenever you are trying really hard to open something, or pull something you grunt and groan to try to get it open – it’s hilarious! You also love to dance to music. When you get hurt (and it’s not that bad) you say “Oww” and want us to kiss it better. When you leave one room or done playing somewhere you say bye bye to the people and things you were playing with which is especially cute when you’re just leaving the room to go do something else.

You also just had another canine cut through so we're just waiting on one more which means you have 15 teeth. We are going through toothpaste like crazy it seems because you love when we brush your teeth. You'll sit there and hum the "Brushing the Teethies" song I made up when you were little while I brush all your pearly whites. Then you have your turn and will brush and brush away.

Words you've been saying the past few months are: dada, mamma, nana, papa, baby, bye bye, nigh night, light, elmo, banana, apple, moon, sun, uh oh, more, turtle, hide, all done, ball, book, help, up, down, bow, home, pen, rock, hot hot, button, hi-ding (loves hide and seek and will count “two, two, tee” then come find us), knock knock, dumbo, help

white – Snow White

eindein – Einsteins

wuv – Love you… sometimes comes out as Woo

dat dat – you say this when you want to play in the front seat

helloo, helooloo – you like to talk on the phone to people and will say hello and hi

brrr – when it’s cold

caddy – candy

dink – drink

muh muh – milk

tease – for cheese

ray - raisin

tarrr - star

peh-win – penguin

ho ho ho – santa

peas –please

tink – for thank you

side – outside

oh no! – you’ll say this when something happens and will put both hands up on your cheeks

choo choo – with arm movement for train

bye – when there’s a butterfly

poopoo – for a diaper change

moo – movie

airpain - airplane