Late, per usual but C is 19 months old! She somehow gets cooler every day. Watching her grow is the best.
C at 19 Months
I’m not sure how many different ways I can say that C is so fun, but that (and, “I’m obsessed with her,” and, “I adore her,” and, “She’s so sweet”) is what I say about a hundred times a day, often to no one in particular. This is essentially the same as the last couple months because it’s all still so true. C is so fun and so funny. She has excellent comedic timing and a big personality, and she makes us laugh every day. She has lots of strong toddler opinions, and she makes them known. But she is still very adaptable and the very sweetest. She’s great at playing by herself, and her imagination seems to be going wild. She loves pretending to cook, feed us, clean, and talk on the phone, and she pretends her stuffed animals are doing all that stuff, too.
She recently figured out buckles, and she still spends extra time in carts, her car seat, and her high chair practicing and then signing for help when she clicks the buckle into place but can’t get it undone. C also loves to throw/catch balls, wrestle around, play with race cars, build and knock over towers, and be chased around the house.
She loves to see what I’m cooking and snack on ingredients, help get laundry out of the dryer and unload the dishwasher, take things to the trash, guide the vacuum and mop, and undo (or redo) any attempt at organization she can reach.
We call C an outside kid because she is always so happy to be outside – rain or shine – and she gets crabby when she’s been inside too long. She and I both heat up quickly, so we end up outside several times a day for shorter spans of time. Sometimes this looks like hanging out on our deck at the water table for a few minutes, and others it looks like going to the park or a splash pad in the morning, walking in the shady woods, or drawing with chalk and helping me with yard work. She also loves evening adventures to the creek behind our house.
C is a little athlete and she really doesn’t stop moving. Everyone who spends time with her comments on this. I can’t imagine what she’d do if she wasn’t moving all the time because it’s really all I’ve ever known. She loves experimenting with new ways to walk, doing sprints down our front hall, rolling around on the couch and ottoman, and trying to climb everything. She’s so good at stairs that I sometimes get lazy with our baby gates; I know she can handle going up and down, and I’m never far behind.
She loves to point at things so we’ll tell her what they are. If we get it wrong, she’ll continue pointing and shake her head at us till we provide the correct answer. She’s also great at finding the correct object/animal/color/body part when asked.
And we’re getting more and more words from our little physically-motivated toddler, which is so fun. I hear her test out a new word or three almost every day. Her little voice is the best.
C loves dogs and other animals, dolls, books, pictures, mirrors, music, sunglasses, running errands, big kids, playing with water, and anything she can climb.
She loves dancing, being carried while you run or dance, and being spun around. We love finding new ways to make her giggle.
C lights up when you clap and tell her she did a good job, and she also claps whenever she thinks she did a good job. She loves books, and especially likes pointing at everything in a book so you’ll tell her what it is. Sometimes, she also goes off and sits by herself and looks through her books, babbling to herself, which is adorable. She really does not like sitting still for diaper or clothing changes.
C has all her teeth except her two-year molars. She’s acting like those are bothering her a bit, but they’re not there yet.
Sleep
We knew sleep might be a mess this month because we were planning to introduce her big-girl bed. And it sort of was, but it also went way better than we expected. The beginning of the month was a lot like last month, and her schedule was generally erratic. Finishing her floor bed took longer than we expected, and while I was a little antsy to make the switch, I also wanted her sleep to normalize a little before we did it.
But after Jack put the bed together in her new room, she found it and got so excited. It was the cutest thing. In the past, whenever she received a gift, C acted mostly indifferent, as if she’d always had that item and it was nothing special. But she giggled, danced all over her bed, sprinted from one end to the other, laid down, rolled around, got back up, and said, “Night-night,” for almost a half hour straight. She understood that it was hers and it was for sleeping, and it was so sweet.
That night, we still went up to the nursery and she slept great. But the next day at naptime, she walked straight into her new room. I’d been loosely planning to have her stay in the nursery over the weekend and start the new room experiment the following week when Jack was off work. But I also wasn’t going to tell her she couldn’t sleep in her bed. So, I settled in and figured it would be a weird nap. And it was. It took me a while to convince her to really rest; she wanted to play and babble and get up. I cuddled with her and rubbed her back and sat in the bed and rocked her, and 45 minutes later, she settled down and napped for a little over an hour. Not bad.
And that broke the seal. That night at bedtime, she went right into her new room. It took us an hour and a half to get her down, but once she was asleep, she slept for about 10.5 hours. Not as long as she’d been sleeping in the crib, but not bad.
After that, she got up early a few mornings, so we added a layer of blackout film to her blackout curtains, and that seemed to help a good bit. Then, she had almost a week of split nights, where she’d wake up screaming and then be up for 2-3 hours in the middle of the night. One of those days, she ended up awake for the day at 3:30am. Right after that rough stretch, she got a bad cold. I have no idea if she was not feeling well before that or if something else was going on.
And as she got over the cold, things seemed to normalize a bit. It’s a different normal than when she was in her crib, but it seems to work for her. She’s sleeping 10-11 hours most nights (vs. 12-14 in the crib) and napping closer to 2 hours most days (vs. a little over 1 in the crib). We found that the comforter and top sheet are a little distracting, so we ended up taking those off (for now) after a couple nights.
I usually give her some milk and hold her hand, and then either rock her to sleep or rub her back till she falls asleep. Sometimes I have to sing. It takes between 20-30 minutes most nights and naps, and if it’s taking more than 45, she sometimes requests Jack or I tap him in. We’re practicing more bedtimes with him so we have more flexibility once her baby brother comes, and it’s definitely easier to have him help now that she doesn’t nurse.
We’re still working on convincing her that she can get out of her bed in the morning and just come to our room or downstairs. On the mornings she wakes up very rested and happy, she usually does this. But other mornings, she’ll just sit in her bed and stare at the door and cry.
Eating
C eats very well most of the time. Her stretches of eating less usually coincide with illness or teething. She loves pretty much all vegetables and fruits, and eats eggs, cheese, guacamole, chili, rotisserie chicken, and noodles of all sorts very consistently.
When presented with dessert, C is only interested about half the time, and only ever wants a few bites. But she does seem to like whipped cream, ice cream, and chocolate.
We eat dinner as a family, and C and I usually eat breakfasts and lunches together, and she snacks within reason. We usually try to avoid big snacks too close to meals. If she’s hungry, she does well with fruit and veggies (and Cheerios) as “appetizers.” Some days it seems like she hardly eats anything. Others, I’m shocked that she’s eating so much.
C still loves water but is more curious about other drinks now. We give her tastes when she asks. She has changed her tune on chocolate milk and occasionally requests it at breakfast. Anytime she sees us drink water mixed with LMNT packets, she comes over to finish our glass for us. Fortunately, she still loves water, and she’s very big on ice.
Schedule
We fit most of our plans into the pre-nap time, since C naps so late. I usually let her get up whenever she naturally does, which is generally between 8 and 9 right now, and then we have breakfast and clean up. Then we run errands, go outside, or go on play dates.
We eat lunch between noon and 1, and then she plays or helps while I clean up. Her nap generally starts between 2:15 and 3:15 and ends between 3:30 and 5. After her nap, she’s often ready to go outside and play or play with her toys as soon as she’s had a snack and some cuddles. We eat dinner around 7, maybe squeeze in a little more outside time, and let her get all her energy out by running all over the couch, tumbling around on her Nugget, or climbing up and down the stairs. I get her up to bed once she crashes or when she admits to being ready. It’s usually right around 9, and she’s typically asleep by 9:30.
Things I Don’t Want to Forget
- How many different ways she sleeps now that she has all the space in her new bed. She uses the whole thing.
- She gets frustrated with having a ponytail partway through the day and insists on going through the rest of the day with her hair in her face. This also bothers her, and she spends a lot of time swiping it out of her eyes. It’s starting to get long enough to tuck behind her ears now. Such a big kid.
- Her “please” sign has gotten lazy, and she’ll usually just swipe an arm across her chest or belly and give you a look, because you know what she wants already, and she knows it.
- She loves signing “again” and saying something that sounds vaguely like “again” when she hears a song she likes or wants you to keep reading the same book.
- When we get out of the car at home, she gives me a big hug and then almost always points at the sidewalk chalk or toy car in our garage to let me know she wants to stay outside.
- She has the best eyesight and spots ants, other bugs, and birds from weirdly far away.
- She still loves to play with my makeup and clothes while I get ready. This mostly amounts to getting all my stuff out and strewing it across the room. But it’s sweet and takes all of five minutes to clean up later. Sometimes, she pretends to put various products on herself. And sometimes there’s still a little makeup on a brush and she ends up with blush on her nose. We got her a fake makeup kit. She loves it.
- C still loves the tags on her toys and rubbing her fingers on anything that vaguely resembles tags or nubs. She plays with the strings on my shorts, the extra length on my watch, my hair, the diamond on my engagement ring, and the strap on my bra while she’s winding down. She’ll absentmindedly play with the fringe on a blanket or a tag on her toy while she’s playing.
- She’ll randomly climb onto your lap and kiss you. It’s like she just realized she loves you so much that she has to give you a kiss right now.
- She likes to duck between your legs when you’re standing, and she’ll go back and forth for a while before she gets tired of the game.
- When I pick her up, sometimes she’ll lay her head on my shoulder and just go totally limp for a few minutes.
- Her squeals and babbles. She has a lot to say.
- When she doesn’t want to be put down, she’ll pull her knees into her chest and refuse to put her feet on the floor.
- When she doesn’t want to be picked up, she makes her armpits go limp so she just slides through your grip.
- She has the best, most genuine giggle ever.
- Whether you’re laying on the floor or sitting on the couch, she treats you like a jungle gym and climbs and rolls all over you.
- When we think she’s tired or it’s time for nap/bed, we’ll ask if she wants milk. Sometimes, she insists she’s not ready and shakes her head aggressively. Other times, she heads straight to the stairs for bedtime. Once she has decided it’s bedtime, she gets very frustrated at any delay.
