"Let Them Be Little"

So let them be little,
'Cause they're only that way for a while.
Give 'em hope, give them praise,
Give them love every day.
Let 'em cry, let 'em giggle,
Let 'em sleep in the middle,
Oh, but let them be little. 

 

This kid is growing up so fast!  TOO FAST!  I took her to her 18 month doctor's appointment on Tuesday and she is measuring up great!  She is just under the 50th percentile for weight and right around the 75th percentile for height.  I'd call that just perfect!  :) 

As the doctor began asking questions about Melia's development I felt like the questions were almost stupid!  "Does she have at least 10 words?"  "Does she run?"  etc.  She'd been doing all the things they were asking about for MONTHS and MONTHS!   The doctor quickly realized this and instead switched to asking me the 2 year old milestone questions.  Those were MUCH more to Melia's developmental level.  "Is she walking backwards?"  "Does she throw overhand (rather than side-hand)?"  "Can she follow 2-step directions?" (ie--get your doll and bring it to mommy.)  "Does she play pretend?"  (She's been pretending to eat fake food since she was probably < 9 months old!)  "Can she say and point to body parts?"  "Does she use a spoon and fork without help?"  "Does she have 50+ words that she can say and use?"  "Does she string words together?"  (She often puts words together like, "Jersh, dog." or "Daddy boy." or "Mommy eye" or "foot hurt." or something like that, but one day I was asking her to point out different facial features on Chief.  I pointed at Chief's nose and asked what it was and she said, "It Jeesh nose!"  WOW!)  The only 2-year-old trait she does not have down is walking up stairs.  She's been crawling and climbing up and down the stairs since well before she was a year old, but she cannot yet WALK up and down them.  However, she does pretty well if you're holding her hand.  But I tried doing it with her the other day and honestly I think the only reason she isn't walking up the stairs on her own is because her legs aren't long enough yet!  :)  She can't lift her leg that high!  Anyway, she is doing great!

Tuesday was also a big day for Melia because it was her last day with bottles.  Since Wednesday, she is solely a sippy cup girl!  It's been a little tough and she's refused to take a nap since then (I think having a bottle right before her nap just calmed her down enough to sleep and the sippy just doesn't do it for her) but it's going relatively well.  We're going completely cold-turkey at the suggestion of the doctor.  If you want more info on how we're switching, you can read about at www.mommybabyblog.blogspot.com.

Here are some other fun things Melia does:

She changes her baby's diaper and as she opens it she squeals, "EWW!!  Poopooey bopper!"  (Translation: "Eww!  Diaper!  Poopy!")  If I do the same she laughs and laughs!

She will sing a little bit of her favorite song with me.  It's what we call "The Gorilla Song." 

If she ever catches a glimpse of my bare belly she points and excitedly says, "Evah!  Evah!"  (For Evera.)  She will also put words together and say things like, "Evera!  Baby!  Boy!" 

She LOVES to point out boys!  For some reason this girl REALLY likes boys!  :)  Mike has a friend, Jason, who's been helping Mike remodel the basement.  Whenever he's downstairs Melia won't stop talking about the "boy."  Then if I need to put her to bed she insists on saying "Ni-Ni" to "Boy."  Perhaps Mike's married friend with 4 sons is Melia's first crush.  :)

Melia is terrified of loud things.  She hates the vacuum, the lawn mower, and Mike's power tools.  Her entire body will tremble with fear and she'll scream.  She's recently learned the phrase, "I'm scared."  She'll say, "I sca."  It's interesting to see how not-learned this trait is.  I know I am a worrier and am truly afraid of way too many things--and I get my worrying from my mom, I know.  However, I'm learning with Melia that it is genetic, not just learned because these fears started long before she could ever have learned fear from anyone!

Melia will tell me if she's poopy and needs a diaper change.  It's actually very helpful!

Melia LOVES to read books.  Some of her favorites are "Winnie the Pooh,"  ANYTHING Sesame Street, especially if it has Elmo, Ernie, Bert, or Zoe.  "Snow White," "Dora the Exlporer, Let's Find Boots!" and "Daddies are for Catching Fireflies."  My favorite is when she "reads" Snow White to herself.  Every time she gets to a picture of the evil queen dressed up as the little old witch she squeals, "NO!  NO!  NO!" 

This girly girls is obsessed with shoes.  She loves to wear them and especially loves to walk around the house wearing my shoes.  It's pretty cute.  The other day I took off her shoes for nap time and she got sooo upset and wouldn't calm down until I put her shoes back on.  Then she took a nap with her shoes on.

Two of Melia's favorite things are flowers and butterflies and she LOVES to point them out anywhere.

For some reason Melia is obsessed with cars.  It all started at my friend Brittani's house.  We were there for a party and Britt's dad has a model car up on a shelf.  Well Melia saw it and started shouting, "CAR!  CAR!"  She wanted it.  Of course she didn't get to play with it.  But even when we left she kept crying for that car.  Ever since then whenever she sees a car out the window, or on TV, or in a book or ANYWHERE, she gets so excited and shouts, "Car!  Car!"  The other day I thought I'd see if she'd watch a little of Tangled (I mean I'd much rather watch that than Sesame Street) but a commercial for Cars 2 came on and she got so excited and was so upset when the commercial ended I decided I better put in the movie Cars instead.  It is BY FAR her favorite and she watches it better than anything else.  She LOVES cars.

Melia loves music and LOVES to dance.  This is just a new thing for her.  She used to bounce a little as a baby when I'd play music, but never too much.  Now she moves from foot to foot as fast as she can and sometimes spins too!  It's pretty cute.  She also LOVES Classical music.  She definitely does NOT get that from me.  Mike likes classical music but he's never listened to it with her.  I guess that's a genetic thing too.  We were in the car one day and I was flipping through stations and just happened upon a classical station and she got so excited.  When I changed the station she got upset.  Then the other day Mike had her in the car and I'd told him she liked classical music so he thought he'd try it out and see how she reacted.  She was happy as a clam.  When I got in the car I was like, "Are you kidding me?"  Mike decided to try to change it to kids songs to see how she'd like that.  We turned on songs like, "Knick-knack paddy-whack" and she got so mad and actually PLUGGED HER EARS the rest of the time!  She definitely knows what she likes and what she doesn't like!

Here are just some pictures of my girl.

This is her attempting to do her "scary face" for dad.  Look at the adoration in her eyes.  She loves her daddy!

But there is nothing and no one that she loves more than her big brother.  Last weekend when he was here she followed him around like a puppy dog.  She idolizes him.  He is her favorite person in the world.  Whenever dad gets home at the end of the day and she hears the garage door opening she excitedly looks at me and shouts, "Su-sur?!"  It's so heartbreaking on the majority of the day when I have to tell her, "No, Spencer isn't here today."  She gets so sad.
 
She also LOVES to read!  And Spencer is so sweet to read to her quite often.

And most of the time the books are upside down.  :)

 Melia is finally sortof starting to pay attention to the tv and she LOVES Elmo, Ernie, Bert, Zoe, and CARS.  :)  She also sortof likes watching Snow White.  She doesn't watch ANYTHING for more than about 3 minutes, but she'll ask me to turn whatever it is on.  And if I turn it off (even though she is playing and paying no attention the tv), she gets very upset.  :) 

She loves to eat fruit.  It's her new favorite because she never used to like any of it.

Melia is a relatively good little eater and will climb up into her high chair on her own to let me know she's ready to eat.

 She's such a ham when I get out the camera!

And she LOVES drinks of ANY KIND!  She is such a stinker.  We had just gone to Arby's and when we got home she stealthily stole my drink and then went and grabbed the water bottle too and sat down and started drinking both of them!

Another thing that Melia loves is cheese.  She is a girl after my own heart.  :)  LOL!  The other day I was sitting on the floor slicing cheese to put on crackers.  She came, stole the whole block of cheese, and ran away with the cheese and her bottle.  I found her sitting on the kitchen floor drinking her bottle and eating the cheese.  She was very proud of herself.  :)

 Here she is taking a big bite out of the block of cheese!  Crazy kid!

Melia is her Daddy's girl.  She loves to be silly!

Every night Melia HAS to sleep with "Mummer" her glow worm.  She LOVES this little thing.  She also has to sleep with my old Pooh Bear from when I was little.  If you mention "Mummer" or "Bear" she will immediately shout the other name.  They don't go anywhere without eachother.  It's always "Mummer, Ber!"

 

One day she insisted that the babydoll and pooh bear eat with her.  I set them up in the chair by her and she was very excited.  :)

 

About two months ago Melia got sick with pink eye really bad.  She had it for quite a while and it just wouldn't go away.  Not even the drops would take care of it an eventually we had to get her on an antibiotic.  Look at those sad little eyes.  She's still so sweet, even sick.

Here's another pink eye picture.  I just think she looks so sweet her.  Ooh and you must take notice of her zebra print rain boots.  She LOVES these boots and insists on wearing them quite often.  They were a hand-me-down from my sister Kristy.  Melia LOVES THEM!

Here's Melia's sweet Daddy taking care of her while she was sick.

And here's my silly girl sitting in the laundry basket with her babydoll's pacifier in her mouth.  :)  She LOVES that pacifier and it is in her mouth much more often than it is in the babydoll's mouth!  :)  Even though it only has a tiny nub to suck on she still walks around with it in her mouth all the time.  She is so funny.  She never cared for pacifiers when she was a baby, but now that she's older she loves them--just because she likes to pretend she's a baby.  I have her old ones in a drawer in the kitchen and she'll go get them out and shout, "Baby!  Baby!"  And then put it in her mouth.  :)  (You can also notice her sporting her pink cloth diaper in this picture--the cloth diapering road is going well.)

She is such a sweet "little mommy."  I know she'll make a great big sister.  The doll in the hot pink is her first babydoll, which she got for Easter and she LOVES it.  The one in the light pink was MY first babydoll (not to be confused with my first dolly, "Strawp") and Melia found it in a box of my old stuff in the basement (along with my old Pooh Bear and "Strawp").  She loves that dolly too.

Melia is sure a little talker and says almost everything.  Here are some of her favorite words.  :)
(I started recording this list probably about a month ago to post on here and some of her words have evolved since then.  If they have changed, I put the new word in parenthesis next to the original.) 

Mommy: Mommy

Daddy: Daddy

Spencer: Su-sur
Evera: Evah
(Cousin) Hannah: Anna
(Cousin) Becca: Kucka
(Cousin) Aubrey: Aubey
Chief: Jeesh (Jersh)
Jesus: Jees (Jeezie)
Grandma: Ma'aMa
Grandpa: Bapa

Doggy: Doddy

Food: Num-num

Bottle: Bah-poo (Bah-bow)
Sippy Cup:  Sippy!
Cracker (or anything yummy and not sweet): Cacker
Candy (or anything sweet): Cookie-Cookie
Banana: Anana
Boy: Boy

Girl: Gu

Ball: Ba

Diaper: Bopper
Poopy:  Poopooey

Water: Vaver

Shoe: Shoeie
Eye brow:  Eye bow
Outside: Site
Flower: Fahfer
Butterfly: Fuh-fye
Frog: Fock (yeah...we're trying to teach her "Froggie" instead)

Bye: Bye-Bye

Night Night: Ni-Ni
Car: Car

Elmo: Ehmo

Bert:  Burp

Ernie: Ehnie

Zoe: Zowey

Dora: Doh
Bear: Beh
Glow Worm: Bummer (Mummer)
Blankie:  Geekie (Gankie)