19 months old!

Our baby (to me) girl is 19 months old! Sometimes I look at her and she still looks like such a baby and other times she looks like such a big girl. She's so small and her hair isn't quite all the way grown in and she still drinks her "milk" out of a bottle, so I think that has something to do with it. But she has 16 teeth, she has a vocabulary of at least 150 words that she uses consistently and correctly (not including the fact that she still calls water "bubbles" and she still calls pinecones "bananas" which I think is adorable beyond words and both have a long story as to why she calls them that), and her class at school is filled with kids who are potty training. So technically she's a toddler...but what toddler do you know that still can squeeze into a 3month sized onsie? I'm starting to think I should get this thing bronzed...

What Reese likes to talk about: Chickens! Chickens! And more chickens! Also baby chickens and the fact that the chickens sometimes go home. She likes to talk about horses, baby horses, and the two sounds that she thinks horses make. She also likes to talk about the horses that eat bananas...or pinecones. She talks about ducks, momma ducks (aka geese), baby ducks, and the ducks at the library. She says that doggies and puppies say "woof woof" and sometimes they are "barkins". She tells me that school is fun and what her friends names are at school. She talks about Daddy and how he talks like a monkey. She hops around while saying "hop hop hop". She shows us what the elephant can do with his nose and she can say elephant pretty much as good as I can. She often tells Paco "No, Paci! It's hot!" for no other reason than to chase him around and yell at him. She gives hugs and kisses and says she's sorry when she's naughty. And she always says please and thank you. She tells me to "says cheese" when she sees my camera, although she rarely smiles for me unless I act so silly that she can't resist. She talks about Elmo, Dora, and Boots...a lot! Sometimes she talks about Blue. She talks about "buuflwies"(butterflies) and bugs (ladybugs) and bees and how they fly in the sky. She likes buses so much she calls all vehicles "the bus". She knows a lighthouse is a "house". She loves books and will bring them to you and say "read" and then insist that every word on the page says "Reese". She says "uh-oh" when she spills something and then shows me her "mess". She ALWAYS wants to go night-night when she is tired and will scream about it if it takes us a little too long. She talks about riding "the bike" and wearing "the hat" and how we go to "the beeeeeeech". She talks about Noah, Aden, Ava and Michael and their mommas. She talks about her grandparents...all of them...the ones we saw at the beach, the ones on the computer, and the ones who have the doggies that are barkins. The other day we had a long talk about dolphins, starfish, a baby octopus, and swimming. She likes to kick and splash and run run run. She also likes to write with "the pen" in her book. She can point our all her body parts and tell you what they are, including her bum. She talks about birthdays and cake and girls and boys. She likes pockets, rocks, tea, shoes, socks, herself in the mirror, and all kinds of other things. And of course, she still loves Blankie.

The conversations you can have with this baby are endless and priceless. She is expressive and opinionated and I love hearing her verbalize what she's been thinking about all this time. We found out at school recently that they didn't know she could talk and had I had a long conversation with her teacher about this. Reese has been having a tough time adjusting to school, but after my conversation with the teacher, things have been better b/c they have been getting her to open up. Last week some of the things we got on her daily reports were: "Reese had an excellent day and is really starting to talk to us a lot more! She interacts with all of the other children and loves to look at herself in the mirror! : )" and "Before nap she was really talking a lot so we got to see how many words she really does know. She's so smart!" and "We didn't realize Reese knew so much sign language. She was showing us all her signs today!!"

Some of her favorite songs are: ABC's, Happy and You Know It, Wheels on The Bus, Bear Went Over the Mountain, Ten Little Indians (sometimes she says girls, sometimes boys), Twinkle Twinkle, Happy Birthday...Cha Cha Cha, Ring Around the Rosy, Victor and Vito, Bumblebee Buzz Buzz, Raid the Refridgerator, Little Playmate, No More Monkeys Jumping on the Bed, and about a million more. She loves to sing and will climb in your lap and request a song and even sing some of the words if she knows them. She's singing to herself as I type this! Oooops, she just stopped to yell at poor Paco. He's such a good sport!

She still doesn't like riding in the car for very long, getting dressed, the daycare/school dropoff, or eating. Other than that, she's pretty much game for anything and would much rather be out and about learning and seeing new things than hanging out at home...like "The Mommy".