We’ve hit that landmark (in my opinion) 1.5 year-old mark. Time is flying and at the same time Reese just seems to continue developing and maturing so quickly it seems like she is getting older quicker than the time that is passing. That, and her hair is growing at lightening speed. She pretty much needs it up in some way to not look like a living Einstein but I do love it when it curls.
Her opinions abated for some time and now are back in full force with drama and shazaam (as in kicking the ground, telling us no, or just plain sobbing). Otherwise:
Her vocabulary continues to grow. New words include: Wubba, nana, swing, slide, ‘Lottie’ (loosely but also confused when we saw ‘naughty’), pee pee, chocolate, hair, boots, socks, bird, please, Papa, doggie, balloon, stop (her command for Google) .
Dipping is a thing, and it works, I’m an advocate for dips right now.
Not only does she love riding the bus she now waves to each and every bus that she sees. She also hears the bus from our house.
She’s getting good at putting things back when you ask her to. We went shopping where they have baby shopping carts and she put a lot of random things in her cart but then put them back (maybe not in the correct place) when I asked her to.
She’s showing more interest in the potty seat and sometimes asks to sit on it so there is no longer fear there.
She’s trying to put her own shoes on now.
She’s learned to blow bubbles (on peoples backs and ligaments).
She watched Frozen for the first time, and was enthralled by it.
She will throw things away. I once changed her diaper in the living room and she picked it up and took it to the trash. I was impressed that she knew what to do with it.
She has made homemade play doh with our nanny and loves playing with it, at least four times a day. She likes to smack it and press on it and uses the little cookie cutters to make shapes. It’s really cute how she gets up on her learning tower to play with it multiple times a day.
She is stubborn right now, especially with putting on clothes and going for walks. This stubbornness really only picked up in the past week and can be exhausting!
She is still super sweet and has been giving the best hugs and kisses lately!
It’s only been a few days since our guests left but it seems like it has already been forever. We were lucky enough to have Grandma and Papa Miller come stay with us for a few nights to visit baby girl and do a few fun things around town. Overall, Reese was in a pleasant and sweet mood for her grandparents and Bryan and I were able to do a few things for ourselves at the same time.
Bryan picked his parents up from the airport last Wednesday night and met Reese and I at home with Thai food carryout for dinner. We caught up with one another and Reese enjoyed her first show and tell with her grandparents before going to bed.
Being sweet for Grandma
Thursday and Friday Reese got to spend the whole day with her grandparents while Bryan and I worked as usual. Both days she was a sweet baby girl with her parents away and didn’t give her grandparents too much trouble. She enjoyed a lot of books, puzzles and Sesame Street and a few walks outside and to Plum Tree Park.
A visit to Plum Tree Park
On Thursday night the four of us decided on an impromptu dinner at Palisade’s in Elliott Bay for their early prix-fixe three course meal, in lieu of no Guest Chef Night at FareStart. While us adults actually managed to have a three course dinner with a toddler at the table, including steelhead for all of us, crab bisques, delicious bread, and bread pudding and chocolate torte for dessert, Reese roamed the restaurant mainly interested in the live steelhead in their indoor pond. However, she did enjoy bites of the steelhead and of course the chocolate torte (chocolate is a new word!).
Enjoying her chocolate
Friday was Valentine’s Day and work was as usual, plus a staff meeting at my office. I brought home a whole pizza from our staff meeting to have for an easy dinner and a movie night, along with a bottle of vino, while Bryan outdid me and brought home flowers for both me and his mom and a balloon for his girl Reese. I was all about a low key night in and honestly was not feeling up to getting dressed and going out for the night.
Reese started off V-Day with a chocolate truffle, which she actually thought was a ball.
Thankful for the weekend and some time off at home with the Millers. Saturday started off per usual, Bryan made us banana pancakes and then was off to men’s group. Once he was home we all set out for toddler gym. Reese was pretty tired for the gym but still managed to spend an hour jumping from car to car, refusing to let anyone else go down the slide, and did go down the hotwheels car ramp a few times. Bryan and I were able to get in a quick workout and then got dressed up to go out for the night while the grandparents watched Reese. We had a delicious dinner at Shaker + Spear downtown before heading to our third play of the season at the Seattle Rep. This play, about two brothers, was in part a comedy and was enjoyed by us both.
While we were out Reese was having a good time with Grandma
Sunday was adventure day. We all attended church, which was a fantastic service, and then set forth for Poulsbo for the afternoon. We had an itchin’ for Tizley’s family platter and haven’t had since Lori visited over a year ago. Surely Reese would nap in the car on the hour plus drive to Poulsbo. Nope. The rain held off for the afternoon and was actually a pleasant afternoon to walk around town. We had one nap-protesting toddler with us though so she was a bit of a handful in the restaurant, at least once her bites of pretzel were gone. Bryan and I took shifts eating but it was delicious and per usual, the platter was finished without a problem. We browsed a few of the shops and went on a quick walk with Reese to a little kids park on the waterfront, in hopes to get her to take a nap, but no such luck on this afternoon. Surely she would nap on the drive back to the ferry. Nope. The ferry ride was enjoyable and the girl was having a blast but was all over the place. We got back in the car for the short drive home (at 5 pm) and she fell asleep. Go figure. She spent the next hour sleeping in her car seat in her bedroom.
Monday, being the one random holiday that I get off for work, was a day off for me and Bryan took the day off as well. I enjoyed my morning at home and then went to a Bodypump class up north late morning before dropping the Jeep off to get serviced. I returned home and Bryan got a run in in the sunshine. We cleaned up and packed up the car and set out to Seward Park to walk but that just turned into playground time for Reese which she thoroughly enjoyed. We had one last dinner with Lon and Trish before dropping them off at the airport and it was a good one. We wanted to check out the new seltzery by the Ethan Stowell team, located in SoDo, knowing that we love his food and they have a kids play area. Both did not dissappoint. Reese got to play in the kids area, stopping only for a short time to eat some fries, and the adults had a delicious dinner well priced off of the happy hour menu of amazing fish and chips, salad, burgers and dill fries, shishito pepper with aioli, chowder and grilled green beans. It was all delicious and I left stuffed. I’d definitely go back, the place was packed with families of small children.
It was nice to have the grandparents in town for some time and Reese definitely enjoyed her Grandma and Papa. They did a great job taking care of her while they were here and Bryan and I thoroughly enjoyed our one night out.
Bryan’s back, and as expected, Reese is feeling herself. Joy! This week has felt much more normal than the previous week and I think all three of us have reveled in that fact. Despite it still raining mostly nonstop (with some light snow on Tuesday) we are all in good moods because of being back in a routine/normalcy. Scenes from Super Bowl Sunday (before Bryan’s return):
Bryan didn’t actually get to reunite with Reese until Monday evening as she was already in bed by the time he got home Sunday night at midnight and she was still sleeping when he left for work around 6:30 am on Monday morning. But when she was reunited, she gave him no stink eye, no cold shoulder, nothing more than a big ol’ hug and lots of giggles, laughs and cuddles all night, and pretty much all week she has been super sweet to her daddy. She’s even giving me more of a break at times.
We enjoyed a few dinners at home this week, we all attended the FareStart monthly community dinner on Wednesday and were all back at FareStart this week for Guest Chef Night. Bryan has had retention meetings for the first half of the week which moved him to Boeing Field instead of Auburn and I spent one day in Redmond and had my first PT appointment to sort out this issue with the knee pain that I have been dealing with for a few months now. Aside from trying to get in some exercise when I can I have also been trying to put in hours of studying for the SE whenever I get the chance to.
Our nanny has been keeping the girls busy during the day lately and they continue to explore new activities, adventures, and fun. This week they did some coloring with crayons, finger paints and watercolor ice cubes.
They went to the toddler gym once and got outside when they could at our house.
And Thursday they went to the Burke Museum at UW for the monthly free museum day. Reese has been slow to work her appetite back up from being sick and it has probably been compounded by the fact that we think she is getting two more top teeth in now. Because of that, she has still had bouts of high temps and not sleeping her best at night, although she decided to take a 4 hour nap for the nanny on Wednesday!
I’m so happy to have both my husband and my daughter back in action and I am looking forward to whatever the weekend entails. Reese got to visit my office early this morning and then spent the rest of the morning and afternoon with her daddy around town as our nanny called out sick. She’s having fun!
Hopefully we get a glimpse of the sun at some point would be a nice change of pace!
I didn’t know that 17 months came with so many opinions but Reese has them these days. Whether it be which shoes she wears, what jacket she wears, what highchair she sits in, what bib she wants, the list goes on, she wants to let you know what her preference is. That has been the biggest change I have seen in her this last month. Well, that and saying “no” or “no, no, no” all day everyday. She’s definitely testing her limits when it comes to decision-making and at times it is hilarious and at other times it can be frustrating. She literally had a meltdown the other night before dinner and it was lost on us what was going on until we realized that she was in the wrong high chair with the wrong bib. Issue solved! Aside from opinions, what’s the girl doing these days?
Her vocabulary continues to grow. New words include: baby, neigh, airplane, up, down, out, mine, milk, two, water, elmo, shoot.
Lately she has really gotten into cherry tomatoes and she also likes to dip things (fries, veggies, pancake bites, etc).
Her climbing skills continue although sometimes she gets a little too fearless, case in point when she flipped off the side of the couch (thankfully she was caught before falling).
She’s become a great little walker and most times will hold your hand down the street.
She can go down the stairs correctly, she just needs to be reminded that that is how you are supposed to do it.
She loves riding the bus. The other day, while I was paying the bus fare, she went and picked out her seat all by herself. She’s the calmest I’ve ever seen her on the bus for whatever reason.
She is not calm at FareStart but loves it. She runs around that place like she owns it. She knows where all the rooms and stairs are and particularly loves their bread.
She likes to sit and read books by herself a lot lately. Both her and Lottie will read book after book themselves just looking at the pages.
We got some chalk for her easel and she thinks that is pretty neat to draw on.
We have made drastic improvement with sleeping at night. It really only took one night of me going in at her regularly timed wake ups in the middle of the night to provide her comfort but not nurse and since then she has slept from at least 8 pm to 5 or 6 am with at most one wake up and often with no wake ups. And those wake ups only require a quick pick up, pat on the back, and she’s back down in her crib fast asleep. Hallelujah! I was beginning to think I was never going to get more than 4 hours of sleep in a row again.
I can sense that sharing is going to be our next struggle. She’s pretty reluctant to give up a toy that she knows another kid wants.
She has no issue getting outdoor gear on because that means she is going outside. She doesn’t care what the weather is.
We got two stools for the bathrooms and she loves them and loves to stand there talking to herself in the mirror.
We also got a potty seat and I put her on it once and she cried…
Onto another month here soon and always so curious what that might bring.
