19 Months - Came in like a lion and went out like a lamb

Let's just say that Lucy's 19th month of life started kind of rough. If I had to pick two words to describe Lucy at the beginning of this past month, they would be 'sleepless' and 'defiant'. The time change did not help things. Up until this year, I had always loved when the clock 'fell' back, and I would gain an extra hour of sleep. This year, for Lucy, the time change meant that 5 a.m was the new 6. We tried putting her to bed earlier to compensate for her early rising, but to get enough sleep, she would have to be in bed at 5 in the evening and this was just not practical. So she woke up early and CRANKY. To add to this sleep trouble, we spoke with Lucy's pediatrician about her restless sleep, and she suggested that maybe Lucy has a food allergy that is making her uncomfortable and keeping her from sleeping. She advised that we try eliminating dairy from her diet and see what happens. I can only assume from the results since, that dairy was the issue because slowly but surely Lucy has been doing better with her sleep. Lucy must have known that I was going to write a post tonight, and so woke up this morning at 7 a.m., making last night the first night she slept almost eleven hours straight! Even if this is a one time thing for now, it gives me hope that she is capable of sleeping more, and we will continue to work towards that goal! From the beginning of the month to be up every 40 minutes with her, to an almost eleven hour night is definitely promising. Her mood today was nothing short of sweet, funny and happy. Amazing what a well rested child is like! Look at her just lounging in her bean bag chair - my happy, well rested little girl!Lucy has a great sense of direction (which she definitely does NOT get from me). She knows when we are going to towards Grandma's house, the library, a billboard with a baby on it, and the cider mill to name a few. This is both good and bad. Good when she is right about our destination, bad when we are going elsewhere, and she has a melt down when she realizes we weren't in fact going to the cider mill to get donuts. In the below two pictures we took advantage of one of the warm days we had this past month and went to the cider mill where she likes to eat donuts, look at the goats, and then throw rocks in the stream by the mill while watching the ducks. Everything needs to be done in this order too, or she will let you know the sequence is off!Besides the regular weekly activities like a trip to the chiropractor, story time at the library, the grocery store and play dates with friends our days are mostly spent playing around the house. We go outside as much as possible but lately, as the days have gotten colder, we have been trying to find creative things to do indoors. She watches Elmo once a day, usually at the end of the afternoon while we are waiting for Will to come home. This makes for great bribery leading up to Elmo Time and why I will almost never let her watch it first thing in the morning. When we are not eating, spending time on the potty, watching Elmo or playing outside, we are usually changing the diapers of Lucy's multiple stuffed animals and dolls. The best is when I hear Lucy telling me on the baby monitor at 4 in the morning that her stuffed Elmo "pooped". Finally I had to tell her that dolls and stuffed animals do not poop at night time - only in the day time! Here she is below kissing her doll Simone. Lucy likes to hold a doll on her lap while I push them both around the house in the doll stroller. One of these days those wheels are going to break, and I'm just shocked it hasn't happened yet.

Lucy's other favorite past time - second to watching Elmo and changing dirty doll diapers is looking at babies on the computer. We go through the pictures we have of her, stored in month by month folders and we also look at our friend's babies on facebook. Holly, James, Ella, Gavin, Tommy, Adam, Chloe and Eleanor are her favorites to 'stalk' and she would do it all day if she could. If your baby was mentioned in the above sentence, could you do me a favor and post more pictures? There can never be enough - Lucy has an endless appetite for viewing babies, and I have to say that she probably got that from me.

Will and I had a great find this past month on garbage day - a house near us was throwing out not one, but two Little Tikes Cozy Coupes! After a bucket of bleach water, they were as good as almost new, and Lucy loves riding in them. I'm just bummed that the riding season for cars without windshields - and windows and floorboards for that matter - is coming to an end here in Michigan. Our solution was to put one in the garage and keep one in the basement so Lucy can now ride her car while I do laundry.

Lucy's speech continues to improve. This month's favorite vocabulary additions include the word "more" which she repeats over and over again as if that would make the "more" happen faster. More Elmo. More oranges. More tickles. More laundry basket rides. More doll diaper changes! She also is quite fond of telling us to "seat". "Seat" next to me while I eat. "Seat" and play with me. "Seat" here and change my dolly's diaper! She has also discovered the moon, and excitedly screams "moon!" each time she sees it either in the evening sky, in books, or even on the bottom pad of my computer mouse which is shaped like a moon. Just recently she began referring to herself as 'me'. It is quite humorous when I try to do something for her like put on her shoes, her coat or buckle her into something and she yells "ME!" meaning, let me do it Mama! Finally, she has learned two simple phrases this month - the most scary being "No Dada!!" with quite an attitude, and the cutest being "Here you go" which she says at appropriate times. I just love hearing her little voice!

I couldn't resist posting this picture below. The expression on her face sums up the look she has been giving most of the month to me, Will and perfect strangers. "No! Me!!!!"