17 Months

Wow, MomFAIL, I just realized I didn't write a 16 month update last month.

Well, let's see... in the last 2 months...

The Z has learned to use an iPhone.  As in, she walks up to it.  Pushes the button.  Slides her finger on the screen to unlock it.  Pages her way through to find her videos and apps and starts them and plays them.  And I swear, we don't give her that much screen time!  Every time one of us gets out our phone, she starts asking for her favorite apps, which she's named: EIO, Itsy Spider, and Ladybug.

Looking at herself live in the camera app.

She's gotten WAY more verbal.  She can repeat literally anything we say, and she attaches meaning to words very quickly.  She picked up so many more words so quickly after my last post that I stopped counting.

She has also become quite the singer.  She went from singing a few words in a few songs 2 months ago to singing MOST words in a lot of songs.  A lot of songs.  I think she knows all of Baby Beluga, now.  She only skips 4 letters in ABC (the fast ones).  And every now and again I start singing a kiddie song that I'm not sure we've done before, and I guess they do those in daycare because she's singing with me!

"Brown bear, Brown bear" is old news.  She's moved on to "Goodnight Moon".  She can point to all the objects and label them, and can finish each line of the book when I'm reading it to her.

Oh, and that reminds me: colors!  I've been waiting for her to care about colors, and in the last month or so it finally seems to be happening.  In the beginning, I was only showing her blue, green, and yellow, because it seemed like there was a lot of stuff around in those colors, so it'd be a good way to start.  She didn't care.  And then one day whenever I'd ask her what color something was, she'd say, "Blue!", no matter what color it was.  I was really excited, though, because at least she knew blue was a color.  As time has gone by, she's upgraded herself and can now also say, "Yellow", "Red", "Green", and "Pink".  Actually, she can repeat anything we say, like I said above, but those are the colors I've heard her say on her own.  She was totally razzing her dad the other night.  He kept asking her what color the ball was (it was yellow), and she kept saying other names.  He kept saying, "No, yellow", and she'd say "Yellow" (sounds like yeddow), and he'd ask her what color it was and the whole thing would start again.  It was really funny because she definitely knew the ball was yellow and was totally messing with him.

She's busted out like 3 teeth in the last 2 months.  She has 4 on top now, and 2 on bottom.  I think she may be teething again, though, because she's really fussing about her mouth, pulling off the boob and crying, and gnawing on her fingers.  I can't see anything in her mouth, yet, not that she's letting me get a good look.

Her hair is getting really long, and unfortunately hangs in her face if we don't use a bow.  I don't want to cut bangs because that's just a temporary solution: what we really need is just for that front part to grow past the awkward phase.  It's getting there.

Eating a banana at Gaga's.  Gaga didn't have a bow.

She did really well with all of the jacked up schedule things that were going on with AD.  For several weeks P was at the hospital every evening and I was single-momming it.  (Single moms - PROPS.  I don't know how you do it day in and day out!)  I'd mass cook meals on Sunday, fetch her from daycare on my way home, then we'd walk up and down the block to waste some time and wear her out, then heat up dinner and eat together, then hop into the shower, brush our teeth and get ready for bed, nurse her til she crashed, then I'd crash.  She was a trooper, but it was rough.  Not because she was rough, but just because it is rough when you don't have any helping hands or any down time.  We'd call daddy or face time, and she learned to say Aunt Dollie.  And of course we took her to see Aunt Dollie at the nursing home or hospital every weekend.  Also rough (read: keeping toddler away from machines and tubes = ROUGH), but I wouldn't change that for the world now that AD is gone.

They're going to move her up in daycare this month.  I was talking to her teacher last week, and I was trying to pay her (the teacher) a compliment - I was trying to say, "I know that Zoë is fairly smart, but I don't think she'd be nearly as developed as she is without everything you do."  (Because I really and truely believe that.  It hurt me when she started daycare, but I truely believe that Zoë is a better child with daycare than she'd be without it.)  But she stopped me at smart and said, very emphatically, "Oh, no, Zoë is gifted."  Wow.  What an amazing thing for a mom to hear!

Oh, and Zoë got new boots from Gaga.  She lurves her some boots.

Trying to put her new boots on OVER her shoes.

 And she can almost spell her name.  If you start her with a Z, she'll say, "O, E, ZOE!!!"

She's been all jealous of everyone's glasses.  ALL of the adults in her life wear them, so she's been wearing her own pair.

Totally stylin'.

 It has been a big, big couple of months.  I really feel like we have a toddler on our hands now.