22 months

Weight: 28 lbs. She is getting so tall!

Health: We have had another couple months of health yuckiness. Daphne has had a double ear infection and pneumonia. Her cough has finally subsided after almost 2 months of it.

Diet: Her appetite comes in waves. There are days where she will eat everything in sight, and others where she turns her nose up at everything. She loves any type of berry, oranges, bananas, carbs of any kind-but especially croissants and oatmeal. Fish is really the only kind of meat that she will eat unless it is chicken nuggets, which I don’t necessarily blame her for loving chicken nuggets. She is not a big drinker, which is so different than George who would drink all of his meals if that was an option. She eats with utensils like a pro, and often times she insists on eating everything with a fork-even things like crackers.

Clothes: We can tell that she is right on the cusp of being in 24 month clothes. I will probably switch them all out here in the next couple weeks. She is in size 5 shoes still, and size 6 diapers during the day and 7 at night. The size 6 overnight diapers just don’t cut it for her.

Sleeping: We have been putting her to bed around 7:30/8 still, and she generally stays asleep through the night until I wake her up before work at 7. On the weekends, she will stay asleep almost until 9am. Generally she does not have a nap anymore in the morning. She is still a great sleeper. Nothing has changed here. Girl likes to be in bed.

Likes: She loves her stuffies still, with the all time favorite being those Easter bunnies. Now she carries them all around like they are her babies. She tries dressing them, feeding them, and tucking them in. I find this fascinating because this is not something we have really taught. She loves Elmo and Sesame Street. She loves to read still, and she is starting to know the words because she will do the hand motions as I am reading. She loves lift the flap books and anything Elmo. She adores George, and she is always following him around and mimicking what he is doing (even his screaming during tantrums). She loves Legos of any kind, and she still likes to collect all the people up in a line. She loves to pull on clothes. You can often find her in other people’s closet pulling on their pants over hers and trying to put on their shoes or socks. It is pretty hilarious when she gets my socks on because it looks like she is wearing leg warmers.

Dislikes: Daphie Girl has a mind of her own, and she does not like to be told what to do. She is very sure of her routine, and she likes to stay in it. She is not fond of being left in the church nursery, and 100% of the time she ends up back in the pew with me.

Milestones: I feel like she is learning new stuff every day. However, she is not really talking. She has a few words and signs including “read.” She should have two word sentences now, and we can’t even get her to consistently say the same words day to day. She mostly speaks in hand gestures and grunts. In our last meeting with our PAT educator, she offered to refer us to have her tested for a speech delay. Since the assessment is free and at our house, there really didn’t seem to be any reasons not to at least see if she is behind on her speech. Her receptive language is through the roof, so I think they will balance each other out. I am not sure if she will qualify for therapy, but at least my momma heart will be rest assured either way.

Nicknames: Daphie, Sisterbear, Sisterbean, Sis, and Daphie Girl. The two most common are still Daph and Sister.

Quirks: She likes to stuff her stuffed animals and pacies down her shirt or your shirt. Whenever she spills something she runs to get a towel to clean it up even if it is just a drop. She pretty much has her tongue sticking out all the time. She also loves us doing her hair. If I don’t put a bow in her hair, she will start pulling at it and pointing to either put it in pig tails or get her a bow.

We parents are: doing pretty good now that everyone seems to be over the sick period. I however just entered my most busy season at work, so it has been a little chaotic trying to find down time. We also are getting our yard prepped for gardening, so it was nice to finally have some good weather to get some work done. While it is a lot, I am excited to see what we are able to grow this year.

George is: still as wild and wonderful as ever. I am SOOO happy the weather is nice to get that kid outside. He has been playing really well with Daphie lately, and we have been talking to him a lot about how he is a big role model for her. We did just turn in a pre-school app for him, and my heart is breaking to think of him being old enough to go to school. This kid is so curious and loves to learn about things. He loves maps and learning about the functions of the body right now, so that has been fun to foster.

The dogs are: excited to not have to pee in the cold. Really the weather change has had a great affect on all of our demeanor. Daphie has a love hate relationship with them. She pretends they are her babies sometimes and tries to feed them and brush their hair. Then other times when they are barking she acts like she is terrified of them.

How are we looking at your next update being your TWO YEAR update? It’s funny I use my kids’ birthdays to denote big events at work. I had moment today thinking about something that happened while I was on maternity leave with her, and I think about how it is just two years but yet again so much has changed over that time. While it is bittersweet, I love watching this girl insert herself into this family. She is sassy and confident in what she wants, and I hope she never loses that.

Here is George at 22 months.

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Weight: 29 lbs. He hasn’t really gained a lot of weight, but I feel like he has gotten a lot taller.

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Health: We continued the roller coaster of health issues these last two months. George got the worst case of Hand-Foot-Mouth that our doctor has ever seen. (Of course he did.) He has been over it for a few weeks, and you can still see scars from the blisters. It was awful. George seemed unaffected and was excited about the extra days at home that we had him quarantined. George underwent his first “surgery” last week and got tubes put in his ears. He did so great with being put under and didn’t even cry. Hopefully this will help keep the ear infections and other sickness at bay.

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Diet: His diet is the worst. He will eat whatever the sitter gives him, but refuses to eat anything but cheerios, yogurt, and smoothies at home. We can sometimes get him to eat chicken and pasta, but it is never predictable. He will drink so much liquids throughout the day. He sucks juice, water, tea, and milk down like it’s his job. He is obsessed with condiments/dipping sauces. He will dip anything into ketchup (like his mama). It is very frustrating to feed him. Tonight I had given up feeding him actual meals after how lunch and breakfast had gone (very poorly), but then he ate more chicken enchiladas than I did. Toddler taste buds are a mystery.

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Clothes: George is in 2T clothing for everything now. He is still in size 5 diapers, but we do size 6 at night. He is in a size 6 shoe. He is looking less babyish and more big kid.

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Sleeping: He sleeps at night from 8pm-about 6:30 am. He sleeps through the night pretty regularly still. He goes down really easy at night. Naps are a little tricky. Sometimes he goes down easy for naps, but if we throw his schedule off even a little bit, he will play in his crib for hours before falling asleep. He just sits in there playing with his stuffed animals, jumping, or reading books. He has yet to climb out of his crib, but I am thinking those days are numbered.

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Likes: He loves the outdoors and Tom’s shop. He loves the UPS man. The other day he cried when he (UPS man) left the street, like big fat whopping tears. He is obsessed with legos and his fire truck. He loves taking his shoes and socks off in the car. He is still a big reader. He likes doing dishes with me. He pushes the chair over and actually tries scrubbing the dishes.

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Dislikes: He hates mornings right now. He throws the largest tantrums when he gets up and refuses to not be held. He is not happy when we tell him no and try to keep him from doing dangerous things. He is a sassy pants when he doesn’t get to do what he wants right then. He despises getting his teeth brushed. (It’s also my least favorite part of the day…) He hates the deep end at the pool. He doesn’t mind pools as long as he can touch the bottom on his own. He even went down the slide at the no entry side. But for me to hold him in the deep end during swim lessons, no bueno. He has a death grip on us the whole class period.

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Milestones: Gosh he talks a lot. Most of it is unrecognizable, but he is a chatty little guy. His new words are thank you, bite, good job, bubba (bubbles), juice, Grace, cheese, alright, green, blue, two, and mine. He knows a couple animal noises now. He can do a cow, sheep, and dog noises. It is so funny hearing him say bye to everyone. He screams it several times before leaving the house. He can get the milk and juice out of the fridge and put it on the counter. We started swim lessons, as a said above he does not appreciate this time. This last week he was a little better and tried blowing bubbles but he is definitely not a fan of this time. He is starting to really recognize folks that he hasn’t seen in awhile. We stopped potty training, which I guess is an un-milestone. He went on the potty for two weeks and then all of a sudden decided he would never do it again. So we pushed pause on it, and we have just gone back to asking if he needs to go and waiting for him to run to the bathroom. This is fine with us because the original plan wasn’t to start until well after he was 2, and to be honest closer to 3. He has “chores” now. He gets the dog food when the bowl is empty and helps load the washer and dryer with laundry. He takes these jobs very seriously. He smiles for the camera now, while saying cheese.

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Quirks: He is super shy and doesn’t like big crowds. However, when he warms up to you, he loves really hard. When he is sad, a sure fire way to get him out a funk is to play hide and seek. His tantrums are pretty ridiculous. We think it comes from the fact that he really wants to do things on his own and be independent, even if he shouldn’t be doing it on his own. He also isn’t the best at communicating, so sometimes all this frustration comes out in a throw himself on the floor tantrum. When he is really investigating something, he lays flat on the floor to get a really close-up look. He is a very hands-on guy who loves to see every detail. While there are a lot of mentions of tantrums in this post, for the most part if he is exploring he is the happiest guy out there. I just love watching his face light up. He warms my heart.

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Nicknames: Booger, Gdubs, Gman, Little man, Georgie, Georgieman, and Boogs.

We parents are: Our schedules are a little wild right now, so things have been weird at our house with a lot of rearranging of schedules. We are also ready for a month where George isn’t sick since that is super stressful on so many levels. George has been very clingly lately and is definitely becoming a momma’s boy. I have a love/hate relationship with this kind of attention. While I am loving that he wants my comfort and he finds safety from me, it does make it hard to walk alone, get something out of the fridge with two hands, eat a meal where he isn’t sitting in my lap…it can just be exhausting at times for him to want to be on my hip 24/7. The death grip hugs are nice though. Like I said, he loves hard. We also are looking forward to the day where we can go to a restaurant where someone doesn’t have to go “walk” George during the meal.

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The dogs are: loving summer. George loves the dogs. He gets so excited to let them outside. He thinks trying to ride them is his job. Grace will let him do it, and is so patient with him. Crosby gets up and moves away the second George tries to get on him.

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