Addie at 22 months

• For some reason, she prefers my hair to be down, but sometimes mommies with long hair have to pull it back to get the job done. She points, makes a frowny face, does a little grunt, and then signs "please". Once I pull it down, she smiles and settles back. Brian is super happy. In his words, "It is two against one. You cannot change your hairstyle." I have had the same hair style for 8 years now. For me, that is a record!


• I found her doing the motions with Steve from Blue's Clues to the song about finding the clues. She was so cute, especially when she was "writing" the clues in her "notebook".


• Her hair goes past her shoulder blades when wet, but springs into a head full of curls once it dries.


• She has begun signing and saying "please" after asking for milk without any prompting. Sometimes I forget that she does this, and I prompt her anyway. Now that she is trained to sign and say "Please", Mommy has to train herself not to act out of habit. Once, while at GrandTiti's house, she wanted Belinda to get the birds out of the cage for her. Belinda told her the birds were tired and needed to rest. Addie said and did the sign for "please", which made Belinda melt, and the birds were brought out of the cage.


• "No, no, no, no, no." This is my fault. I have this habit of saying "no, no, no, no, no" very quickly. It drives Brian crazy, and I have tried to keep myself to one "no", but being from NY/NJ (and I'm sure my Spanish heritage plays a part, too), I just speak quickly (and somehow subconsciously I think that saying "no" that many times that quickly will make whatever is happening stop that much faster). Well, instead of just learning the word "No" she has learned to say "No, no, no, no, no." She just goes around saying "No, no, no, no, no," as part of her little imaginary conversations and when I say "No". I am working very hard on just saying it one time. Sorry, Dear.


• She has been mimicking and copying more words and phrases than ever. I am just waiting for the day that she says a full sentence and blows us all away.


• "Gook-gook" are stickers. She loves stickers and will do the unpleasant tasks, like eating, in order to earn one.


• She loves to play and tease in a pleasant way. Children pick up what their parents do, and Daddy is a definite joker/teaser. She hides behind furniture, walls, and what ever else she can find, and then will jump out at you saying "Argh!" or "Boo!" (forget the fact that half of her body is showing).


• "Cack, cack!" is what she says when she sees any type of bird. She loves ducks for some reason, so all birds are ducks.


• Brian had been working with her to say the word flower, and now she is saying "Fwow-er".


• When we ask her if she can say "Jesus", she makes the sign for "love" and points to her heart. How close to the truth is that! Leave it to a child to get right to the heart of the matter.


• She loves laying on the bed and reading books (like I used to). She will go from one book to the next.


• Her vocabulary (both vocal and sign) has exploded over the last month. She now says "hello", "wow", "bye", "cool", "nite nite", "go" (especially when we are at a stop light), she signs and says "ball", "please", "Dad", "baby", "eat", "milk", and she signs "thank you" (most people think she is blowing a kiss, which she also does), "drink", "cereal", "kiss", "help", "play", "friend". Communicating with her has been a blast lately.


• She has begun reading more words- arms up, reach, ball, friend, wave, kick, bow, clap, nose, play, bounce- to name a few.


• She is very friendly and socializes with everyone in a room. She leaves no one out. Even the ones that most people overlook or ignore, she treats kindly and tries to get them involved. I loved how on Sunday, she passed out kisses without being told to and "talked" to everyone.


• Taking her to restaurants has been fun lately. She has designated herself to be the greeting committee. As people are leaving, she begins waving and saying "Bye!" to them. She has gotten so many pats on the head, and you see smiles grow just that much more as customers are passing.


• She is in love with her grandparents. She even ate some of my bread roll the other night at a restaurant (woohoo! major accomplishment!) because Grandpops was smiling at her and clapping for her every time she put it in her mouth.

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This song by Carmen Celebrating Jesus is one that I remember listening to back when I was in high school. When he asks at the beginning how many in the audience are 30 or over, I couldn't believe that I am now in that group! When I was in high school, 30 just seemed so far off. My how time flies!