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20 months old today - the last month has just flown by. I feel like you are changing so much. You are so much more of a little girl than a baby most of the time.

You are so caring and loving. You are learning to say “I love you” or ”I faff ewe” and it is so cute. You love to give hugs and kisses to mommy and daddy and to your baby and all of your animals. You love your baby doll and carry her around with you all the time. You pretend to put her to sleep by putting her in your crib and covering her with a blanket. Then you close the door, say “shhh” and then “night night”. You continue to say “shh” and “night night” until it is time to wake up baby. Baby has a special blanket that you are always arranging and rearranging on her. I love looking over at you and seeing you hug and kiss your baby. You take care of your baby by cleaning her face with a wipe (clean), changing her diaper and feeding her. I did not coach you to do these things. It is amazing how little girls just instinctively are so maternal.

The other night it was really cute.  Daddy and Mommy were sitting on the couch with you in the middle reading a book. Then I asked you to give me a kiss, “mmmmmma” (the kiss noise). Then you gave daddy a kiss, “mmmmmmma”. Then you grabbed mommy’s chin and daddy’s chin and turned them together and said “mmmmmmma”. Over and over you turned our heads so that we would kiss. I had just read an article that day in a Christian parenting magazine about the importance of your children seeing you kiss and show affection to your spouse. It was really sweet.

I am starting to see a sense of humor. When we are reading books sometimes you will do the wrong animal sign or sound on purpose and then look at me to see if I notice. You love to be tickled and to tickle. We have a tickle monster that comes for you and you have started to try to imitate the tickle monster when you tickle mommy, daddy or baby. The cutest part is that when you tickle one of us, you laugh too.

You are so smart. It is not just me that thinks so too. Today your babysitter was amazed at how many words and signs you knew. I am amazed at the connections that you make. The other day I sat you in a high chair that is different from what you are used to. I asked you if you remember sitting in the same one at Nikolas’ house. You then said his name and started to do the sign for cat. Nikolas is the only friend you have that has a cat at his house. I was amazed that by mentioning his high chair you remembered his cat. I am so glad you know sign language or else we would not have been able to have that conversation.

You are starting to learn and say friends names. Some of them you have not known for very long but you remember them. It is fun to see you making friends.

Growing up one of our family activities as playing games after dinner. I was telling Sam about how when we were in preschool we would play “animals” where one person would silently act out an animal and the others would guess. Uncle Will would always just walk on all fours and get so frustrated when we could not guess what it was. We decided to see if you were ready for animals and you actually were able to guess some of them. How fun!

You enjoy singing. Sometimes I will hear you singing to yourself. You have a few books that we sing to you and when you pick them up to read on your own you sing your own version. you have a musical piano that plays nursery rhymes. When you pressed the key for itsy-bitsy spider, you started doing the motions. You also love to sing and do the motions for the wheels on the bus.

You are able to follow directions very well (when you want to). In the morning you will find daddy after he has gotten ready in the bathroom and he will ask you to go take his pajamas and put them on his bed. You will follow them exactly. The other day we were changing your diaper and clothes in the bathroom and forgot a shirt. We asked you to go into your room and get your white shirt off the bed. We had no idea what you would come back with. you came back with a white shirt.

I really enjoy that your language skills are improving so much both in your ability to understand and your ability to communicate. You both sign and say phrases of several words such as “more cheese please”. It sure helps to know what you want.

This month you have had several more teeth come in. It has not seemed to bother you once your eruption cyst came and went. It sure is helping you to be able to eat more food. I really enjoy that if we are out and about and a mealtime approaches I can feed you from our plate and not have to have your own food with us. Usually I am prepared with some of your favorites but you are getting better about eating what we eat.

Yes, you are still nursing. I go back and forth about how I feel about this. I still really enjoy it at times and I am very tired of it at times. I had hoped that you would taper off and wean yourself by now but you show no desire to slow down. I need to come up with a plan on how to wean you without it being too traumatic on you.

You are doing very well with potty training, at least as much as I am trying to accomplish at this point. In the last week and a half the only “dirty” dipaer I have had to change was when we were out of town and there was no toddler toilet for you to use. So, you are really good about wanting to go #2 in the toilet. That seems to be what most kids have more problems with. Now if I could get you to hold #1. I have started to look for underwear or training pants for you and it seems that not only are you on the younger end of kids that are working on toilet training, but you are small for you rage as well so there are no options for me to buy. Hmmm.

You are growing so much more independent. You do not fear wandering off from your mommy when we are at a park. You go play with other kids at the playground. You run, climb, and jump. You want to do things all by yourself from eating to dressing your baby. It is so fun to see this independence. This inependence often manifests itself in stubborness and frustration. It is so hard to know when to step in to help and when to let you be frustrated and figure things out. Daddy and I struggle with knowing how to best discipline you. We know you understand things because when you are doing something you know you are not supposed to do, you actually will scold yourself as you are doing it. We pray that we can discipline you fairly, appropriately and in love so that you not only become obedient in your outward behavior but so that your heart is obedient and you do the right thing for the right reason.

I love you sweet Katherine and cannot wait to see what the next month brings.

Jen had this fun little quiz on her blog. It asks you to answer questions about words that sound similar or the same and then evaluates your accent. My accent is from the “Midland”. Whenever I travel people are surprised that I am fron Texas because I don’t have much of a southern accent. Really my only giveaway is the fact that the word “ya’ll” is a regular part of my vocabulary. Most people do seem to think I am from the midwest.