19 Months Old

This post is 2 days late. And while I wish I had a good excuse for the delay, like we lost electricity or I was too sick to type, I don't! I guess just not having enough time will have to do...and, better late than never, right?

Anyway, on Thursday Rhea turned 19 months old. Her last month in the teens! Next month, she will enter the 20s and never look back. But, before we get there...

• The highlight of the past month has been weaning Rhea off of the binkie and she is doing really well with this. She still uses it at naptime and bedtime, but that's it. As soon as she wakes up, she hands the binkie to me and she doesn't ask for it again until it is time to go to sleep again.


• While this is good, I think she has replaced binkie with Monkey. She has a stuffed Curious George monkey and she takes him everywhere with her now. He even goes outside to play, in the car and to daycare. If she puts him down at all it is just a matter of minutes until she is looking for him again. I just hope he can survive the daily surface cleans we have to do after all of his daily activities!


• The other big development is that Rhea likes to share her food and her activities. Whatever she is eating she will say "Mama" and then give me a piece to eat. Usually she doesn't just hand it to me, she shoves it in my mouth giving me no choice but to eat it. She also likes us to do whatever she is doing so when she brushes her teeth, she will say, "Mama, Dada" and we both have to brush out teeth as well.


• She has totally mastered the straw and now prefers to drink out of her sippy cups with straws at all times. It doesn't matter whether she is drinking water, juice or milk, she wants it out of a straw!
  
• She also now understands that when she sees a camera, it means we will take her picture and she instantly says "cheese" and gives us the smile in the picture above.

While there are so many good features to her 19 month personality, we have started to get a little taste of the other side to this milestone. Last night Rhea refused to sit in her chair to eat her dinner. I mean refused! Our attempts to sit her in the chair were greeted with screaming, crying and attempts to throw food on the floor. I guess she could have just not been hungry and we know she was over-tired after playing outside all day, but we also could see a little of the digging in the heels, temper tantrum as well. I have to admit, I was taken off guard because I have never seen her react that way before. But, last night was Super Nanny night and I filed away a few tips in case we see that again.

Today, our angel baby returned, but I know the testing phase is just around the corner, along with those 20 months.