Our 22 Month Old!

22 months!! Wow wow wow. Reese has legit long hair, is speaking in phrases now, remembers stories and can recount them often, and is one smart cookie. I got to spend a large chunk of this month with her for her every waking moment so I really got to take in all she has learned and all of her quirks, obsessions, looks, etc.

• It’s all about phrases right now; stringing two to three words together that actually make sense. She does continue to learn new words on the daily but I guess these are less striking to me. Some of her favorite phrases: “big booty”, “flower cut”, “touch flower”, “back up”, “no Lottie, no”. But my absolute favorite is when she now says “I love you.”
• She is uber bossy. She directs Lottie and me (sometimes Daddy) to follow her exact steps or movements on walks, smell particular flowers, touch certain things, etc.
• While I was “nanny”, she was my mini me and felt the need to give Lottie the same commands that I gave, “No Lottie, no” was apparently one because she says it often. “Lottie, eat” was another when I was trying to get them in their high chairs.
• Both Reese and Lottie are starting to hum/sing the “ABCs”. They also obviously know portions of their favorite songs that they dance to.
• The girls started making and drinking smoothies for afternoon snack. They were also big fans of chocolate milk, even though Reese still doesn’t like cow’s milk.
• Reese has started to snooze on some days, which is a blessing since she hasn’t been going to sleep so early. Maybe it’s also a growth spurt.
• Reese spent most mornings while I was “nanny” walking the whole way up the hill and often the whole way to Lottie’s. She can walk a mile for sure but I’m very impressed with her uphill walking skills.
• The girl likes sand and beaches in general. Can’t wait for the weather to warm up to spend some more time at the beach to see the “big wawa”.
• Reese is big into watering plants right now. I sure hope these tomato plants produce because I want her to see what she helped grow (both her and Lottie did help plant them as well).
• Reese loves helping in the kitchen still and so I have been giving her more kitchen tasks. She has assembled many a salad for us. I just need to convince her that she doesn’t need to macerate the cucumbers before putting them in the salad…But she LOVES the Kitchen Aid mixer.
• The current best things are the balloon that we got at Safeway for $2 and cardboard boxes. Also obstacle courses.
• She still won’t really let us read books to her but she wants to bring us books and she reads them on our lap.
• She has been a cuddle-bug lately and I kind of love it.
• She could play open and shut doors forever. She will literally shut the upstairs doors for an hour if we let her, just sometimes we also need to be playing the game by “knock knocking”.
• She’s super funny and makes us laugh all of the time. She’s a goof ball and I love it.
• She’s gone on many a bike ride and does so well on them. She’s pretty content in there with her snacks, her water, her Wubba, and her sunglasses.

I can’t believe we are only a few months from this little one’s second birthday. I don’t know how that can really be. Still not sure what her 2nd birthday will look like at this point but Reese still doesn’t seem to mind the whole social distancing thing as much as the rest of us.

Chelsea