This month has been a month of big accomplishments. I feel like Shaelyn has gone from being a newly-anointed toddler to a bona fide big girl all in 30 days! Even reading back through this month's lists, I realize how far she's come. The things she accomplished toward the beginning of the month now seem so old hat. Besides a difficult weaning process, this has been my favorite month of Shaelyn's life so far. Her two biggest accomplishments: her absolutely exploding vocabulary (sometimes she'll learn 2 or 3 new words in a day) and sleeping through the night! I think she's slept through the night 5 times this month - for the first time in her life! I feel like a new woman!
4/2:
Today we met Michael for lunch at Red Robin. It was the first time that we ever got a kid's menu for Shaelyn. It came with crayons, and Shaelyn spent the majority of the meal coloring on her menu/coloring book. She loved it, and we have discovered one of her new favorite activities: eating out with Mommy and Daddy.
4/3:
We bought Shaelyn an Elmo's World DVD - we've only had it for 2 days and already she requests it at least 4 times a day. She yells "Elmo!" (pronounced eh-mo) and runs to her little couch ready to watch. Now she requests Elmo's World with two words: Eh-mo! Guck! One of the episodes on her DVD is about "birds". I purposefully got her that one because of her affinity for all things duck.
4/4:
We went over to play at Addie's house and Addie was walking in her walker for the first time. Shaelyn of course thought it was a toy and wanted to push Addie around. Addie was a good sport about it and I think might have even actually enjoyed it. Shaelyn finally realized the best way for them both to participate in the walker fun was for Shaelyn to stand in front of Addie, walking backwards and pulling her along. Shaelyn also does something similar with me around the house, pushing and pulling on my pants legs to get me to go where she wants me to. Whenever she starts this push/pull game, I always say "beep, beep, beep". Well guess what Shaelyn was saying to Addie while she pulled her along in her walker... You guessed it! "Beep, beep, beep!". Addie had a smile on her face.
4/8:
Shaelyn has started using a new smile that only comes out when the camera is pointed on her. I think this is because she sees Michael and I smiling differently for the camera, so she decided that she needed to, too.
Is this how she thinks Michael and I smile?
4/9:
Tonight Shaelyn and Clara played together at the Children's Museum while our husbands were off duing their church duties. Shaelyn always gets SO EXCITED to see Clara and tonight she actually said her name!! (pronounced cah-ah) She now can also say her other friends' names: Addie (add-E) and Max (aks). She also knows when we're on Clara's street, and gets really excited and starts saying her name over and over again!
4/10:
Shaelyn loves to kiss things - all her toys, her friends, Mommy and Daddy, you name it. Tonight I taught her that her toys can kiss each other, and showed her that her ducks in the bathtub can kiss. Cute results, but looking down the road, maybe that was a bad thing to teach her... :)
4/11:
Again with Shaelyn's love of pushing and pulling, she loves to push and pull doors open and closed. Only problem: she started closing herself into rooms and not being able to get out of them. So I put tape in the doorframes (of all the rooms she's allowed in without supervision) so that the knobs can't latch, and then hung tights on the doorknobs so she can pull the doors open (or shut). This is also a favorite game to play, especially after bath time when she's trying to stall getting ready for bed.
4/12:
This afternoon Shaelyn and I were going up the stairs together and she stopped on each stair, laid her head down it, and started snoring. I did it with her, and her little blue eyes looking into mine that close really stops my heart. She loves to pretend sleep. Why can't she love real sleep that much?
4/13:
Lately Shaelyn's been waking up earlier, and so she's able to see Michael before he leaves for work. She loves to run into our room yelling "dada!" at the top of her lungs. This is the first month she's really said "dada" consistently for Michael. Now that she has it mastered, she has a fun little game she likes to play with us when we're both home. She'll look at me and say "mama?" and I'll respond "yeah?" and then she'll look at Michael and say "dada?" and then he'll respond "yeah?". This goes on for quite a few rounds, and Shaelyn absolutely loves it.
4/14:
I rearranged Shaelyn's room so that her bed is now under her window in her room. She's been sleeping on her crib mattress on the floor for a while now, but today I put down a full-sized mattress on the floor in her crib frame, so it looks kind of like a day bed. Her room really looks like a big girl room and not like a baby's room anymore. She used to have a table under her window that didn't allow her to see out of it. Now with her mattress right there, it allows her to be the perfect height to see out the window. For some reason, every time she looks out the window, she makes a monkey noise. Like I said before, she's always dead-on with her animal spottings, so there is something out there that looks like a monkey to her. I haven't quite figured out what it is.
4/15:
If I ever can't find anything, the first place I look is Shaelyn's hamper - it's her favorite hiding place for everything she finds, from the nightlight in her room to my round brush from my bathroom. I have to carefully go through the clothes as I put them in the washing machine now. I have washed a nightlight, a CD, and a hairbrush.
Here's her blocks, diapers, stacking stars, flashcards, and my round brush.
4/16:
Shaelyn went from hating getting her diaper changed to now liking it. I think her new bed has a lot to do with it. When I say, "let's go change your diaper", she'll grab a diaper, and run over to her bed, flop down on it and lay on her back until I get over there. Wow! Does this mean she's ready to be potty-trained? :)
4/17:
Now that Shaelyn is not nursing at night anymore, she wakes up hungry for breakfast right away. Lately, the first words out of her mouth (even before "dada") have been "eggo" and "ilk" (milk). She eats a blueberry eggo every morning for breakfast, and now requests them first thing. It's so wonderful that she can tell me what she wants to eat. ("tchease" = cheese, "ooose" = juice, "gape" = grapes, "cah-cuh" = cracker, "nana" = banana, "ah-tah" = pasta, "ah-pull" = apple, "ick" = chicken nuggets)
4/20:
Shaelyn's awareness of the world never ceases to blow me away. Today she stood by the shower door until I got out. As soon as I told her I was done, she went and grabbed my towel and held it for me until I took it from her. (A few days later, she stood by the shower door screaming for me to get out. She went and grabbed my towel in the midst of her screams and held it out as her way of saying "be done, Mommy!".
4/21:
I bought Shaelyn a step stool for the bathroom today so that she can reach the sink to wash her hands (and see herself since she loves all things "big girl"). I let her brush her teeth in front of the mirror tonight, and she just looked so grown up! (She also really liked it and let me brush her teeth much longer than she normally does.)
Sporting her new jammies, too.
4/22:
Shaelyn's two new animals to add to the zoo in her head - "bee" and "cow", both pronounced very clearly as well. She asks for us to read her new favorite book, "Mr. Brown Can Moo! Can You?", by saying cow over and over. She wants that book read to her at least 5 times a day. (She now knows how to identify, say the word, or make the noise of lion, kitty, monkey, elephant, dog, frog, duck, hippo, giraffe, tiger, bear, alligator, bee, and cow.)
4/24:
I finally finished her quiet book and let her play with it today. It made it all worth it. She loves the pages that have removable items the most, but played with every page with real intensity. She played with it for the first time for about an hour non-stop. Look for pictures coming soon.
4/26:
Shaelyn loves this Sesame Street book called "Diddly Diddly D!". At the end, there is a picture of a doll, dog, duck, dish, dragon, and for some reason a twiddlebug. She loves to point to each thing quickly and have me name it as fast as I can before she points to the next thing. Her favorite thing to point to is the twiddlebug, because I say "twiddlebug" in a high, falsetto voice. Today she started pointing to each picture with her foot, and then realized she didn't have as much control of where her foot pointed as she does her hand, so then she held her foot with her hand and pointed it where she wanted - and pointed to the twiddlebug at least 15 times.
4/29:
Now that Shaelyn has basically started sleeping through the night, she's stopped waking up crying every few hours and now just whimpers every now and then. The last few nights, in the midst of her whimpering, she's clearly said "kitty", "duck", and "cow". Michael and I can't decide if she's dreaming about these animals, and if she is, if they are good dreams or bad dreams.
4/30:This is Michael to add the last one for the month. Today at work I called Shelley to talk about something, and in the background I heard Shaelyn say "Dada?" So Shelley put it on speakerphone, and I said hi and Shaelyn said "Dada!" I asked her how her playdate went with her friends, and she said "Ca-ah" to let me know that Clara was there and "UP!" and "Whee!" to let me know she went down the slide. I asked her if she had watched Elmo and she said "Eh-mo" about 40 times. I asked her if she was cute, and Shelley said she crinkled up her face and shrugged. It was the first time we've had a real phone conversation, where she was listening to me, understanding me, and responding to me instead of taking the phone from Shelley, pushing buttons (M: Hi Shaelyn... S: BEEP. M: I love you sweetie... S: BOOP), and eventually hanging up on me. I can't believe how fast my little girl is growing up.
