20 Months

July 24th, 2015

STATS
Weight: 27lbs
Height: 35 in
Clothes: 2T

EAT
Charlee loves to help cook and bake (when it's convenient for her).  When it's not?  How dare you try to cook dinner while she wants you to play with her?  You must hold her right now and sautee veggies with one hand and not burning anyone!

The pickiness is slowly subsiding, but I know it will rear it's ugly head again.  She's still not one for veggies, but will eat pureed sweet potatoes (with turnips and parsnips) from a pouch.
She's a lover of grapes, turkey, steak, cheese, carbs, yogurt, apples, and donuts.  Girlfriend loves donuts.

SLEEP

sleeping under her "tent"

Down to one afternoon nap a day which lasts anywhere from 1-2.5 hours (yay!)
Going to bed at night is hit or miss.  Lately she's all about "mama," so while this used to be daddy's territory, I have now gotten sucked into the bedtime routine and laying down with her at night (but hey, I get out of cleaning up the kitchen!)

PLAY
Charlee loves to read books.  We read them before naps and bed, but she also loves to read them when she needs a little break from playing.

I have tried numerous toddler activities this month to work on more fine motor skills.  The "pom pom sticky wall" was not as big of a hit as I had hoped.  She's not a huge fan of sticky things.  Loves the pom poms, just not stuck to the window.

I made a busy book with a few other moms from a moms' group.  It was tons of fun and I have already made her more pages.  She still doesn't really grasp the idea and mostly just rips the pieces off that are velcro-ed down.

Charlee LOVES her baby doll.  This was a little "Britney Spears - esque" a la her mental breakdown and driving with her baby sitting on her lap.  Good thing C was just sitting in the car with Baby and not actually driving ;)
She loves to dress her baby and give her a bottle.

Another toddler activity: we taped paper towel rolls to the wall and dropped balls down them.

I caught this little big girl having a tea party with Little Lucy dog and Dolly one morning.  She was feeding everyone snacks.

We love to go for wagon rides!

 And play music.

 Charlee has really gotten into painting this month.  I had to hide the water colors because that's all she wanted to do and I needed a break.

 Little helper feeding the birds!

 WITH FRIENDS
We're very thankful to have some very good little friends to hang out with during the week.

We play a lot with Bowen and his mama Emily.

They snack together and discuss the current events of the day.

Charlee reads to Bowen and then pulls her rank and demands he pull her in the tiny wagon

We also love playing with our little friend, Aubrey ("Au") and her mama, Jessica!  These little friends are just 13 days apart :)
We played at the Madison Children's Museum together.

 The girls had lots of fun painting the windows.

 I don't think Jessica and I are ready for these two to be driving together

 But they are oh so cute

 We also met Aubrey and her mommy and daddy at the zoo one morning.

 These little friends loved looking at all the animals together.

 And they even shared the slide together at the library.

 This past month we finally got together with Jameson and his mama, Brittany!  It had been far too long.
These little lovebirds had a snack together in Charlee's house.

 Then had Brittany take them on a romantic wagon ride down the driveway and back.

OUTINGS
Charlee has been going to school twice a week for an hour at Seventeenth Radish.  We are finally to the point where she loves it!  She runs in to play with her friends and doesn't even say goodbye to me.

 We played at the park with daddy.

We go to the library when it's too hot outside.

We played in the sand at Seventeenth Radish's anniversary party.

We're doing a toddler art class at the museum this month.  The first class was making a sculpture out of rocks.

 We FINALLY got to the Farmers' Market this summer.  Charlee had lots of fun seeing all the different veggies and getting a snack.

 Then we climbed the Capitol steps (where mommy and daddy got married!) and went inside to cool off for a bit.

 July also meant that it was Epicnic!  We got to go to Daddy's company party.  There was a petting zoo and Charlee loved seeing all the different animals.

 She even got to sit on a firetruck!

 And lucky girl got to have a bite of mama's ice cream cone, which quickly became her ice cream cone and no one else could touch it.

 To celebrate the big 2-0 (months), we went to the Betty Brinn Children's Museum in Milwaukee.  It is so cute and Charlee had so much fun playing!

 She got to climb the jungle gym and go grocery shopping.

 Then she drove the delivery truck and watered the plants.

 Her favorite was playing in the toddler park and putting the apples down the shoot on the "rooftop garden."

 Here she is saying and signing "apple."

 We finally ventured to the splash pad!  We never went last year and haven't had the time to go until now.  She's still warming up to it.

FAVORITES
Lucy (Maddie is just OK, but Lucy is amazing)

baby doll, Dolly, Clifford
going to the park

dancing
going to school
playing with dad's leaf blower

 Going to Target to see the dog

 And taking pictures on mom's phone

MILESTONES
bottom 2 year molars coming in!
Can count to 2!

WORDS
mom, dad, dog, done, down, bye, hi, bug, water (wah), goat (go), go, bubbles (bah), ball (bah), blueberry (bah), owl, no, yeah, bow, bird (bir), eye, nose (nah), head (eh), arms (ar), Lucy (YOU), Maddie (Mah), sit (see), up, garage (gah), cheese (chee), bottle (bah), cup, up, leg, shoe, belly, choo choo, bib, chair, open, close, baby, shirt, pants, socks, spoon, teeth, bowl, hi, bye, blue, red, white, black, orange (oh), purple (purp), pink, bear

Phrases:
I want water, I want...
right back

LETTER TO CHARLEE

My little big girl,

I can't believe how big you are and that you are already 20 months old.  How is that possible?  You have grown so much this past month, it amazes me.

You love to copy and will say or do anything that we do. You know so many animal sounds and can say them when you see that animal or on request.  You are picking up more signs every day and more and more words.  You still only say one syllable, but you are also starting to say words together ("Iwanawah" which means "I want water.")

You love to color, draw, and paint.  We spend a lot of time in your play room coloring pictures.  It's a good thing we bought a ton of printer paper last year at Costco!  I have a feeling we're going to be going through a lot of it.

You love matching colors too, blue and yellow being your favorite.  We have a fish puzzle that you have to match the colors to and you love playing that over and over again.  Mommy messes it up and you have to fix it :) 

You love being outside either playing on the deck in your house, taking the dogs for a walk, or going to the park.  You also like to help pick raspberries which really means you carry the bowl and eat them just as fast as I can pick them.

You are a very strong-willed little girl and sometimes we butt heads.  We recently cut out all tv during the day (we used to watch Curious George in the morning at Thomas the Tank Engine at lunch) and that has cut down on your tantrums.  But if you don't get your way, watch out.  The water works come out and you throw yourself on the floor.  I usually tell you to go take a break and you go sit in the corner for a minute to calm down.

You are such a silly girl and you make us laugh every day.  Whether you're dancing around in the kitchen, saying "Iwanwah," running around in circles, chasing your dogs, reading books to yourself, playing in your house, or giving us hugs and kisses. 

We love you so so much!
Love,
your mama

OUTTAKES