I had intended for this post to be the 20 month update but seeing as how we are now halfway through her 20th month I'll just use it as an opportunity to update everyone in what we'll call the State of the Toddler address.
Savannah officially turned 20 months on February 27, hard to believe she’s just 4 short months from being 2.YEARS.OLD.
She really is such a joy, there is so much more laughter and a lot less tears. We are continually amazed at how smart she is and how much she learns just from watching and listening to us. As a result, we’ve made our conversations and word choices much more kid friendly – I actually wince when we’re around other people and an unfavorable word comes out of their mouth…something I’m sure I have made many a parent do over the years.
There is also a lot more laughter on our ends, she makes us laugh multiple times every single day. She loves to play hide and seek even though she isn’t a very good hider, her hiding spots often the exact same place and they’re out in the open, we just do a lot of pretend looking. She loves to feed this fish in the pond across the street and put out corn for the animals in the woods behind our house (so far on the trail camera we’ve gotten raccoons, possums, armadillos and cats).
She’s got too many new words and phrases (3 word phrases at that!) to list, she is very good at verbalizing what she needs and wants and has perfected throwing tantrums if we don’t get it for her. Thankfully we’ve gotten good at walking away when those tantrums start and it’s hard not to laugh at her when she comes running back to us 30 seconds later and is all smiles. She loves to brush her teeth (“want brush teeth”), and although she is actually more interested in sucking the toothpaste off the brush, we happily oblige because who are we stand in the way of good oral hygiene? She loves to tell us where to sit (“sit right there”) and points to a spot right next to her on the couch, she’ll hold our hands and walk us all over the place but if we hold her hand back she’ll drop it in a second.
She love, love, loves to be outside and doesn’t care whether it’s running around the backyard, walking up and down the sidewalk or playing on the porch just as long as she is not inside. She knows she has to have shoes on to go outside and often knows exactly which pair we’re asking for and where they are located, she even got a pair on all by herself the other day!
We find it hard to discipline her because we're too busy laughing at her antics, last Saturday she and I went on a walk to get the mail and she wasn't very interested in holding my hand, she was however interested in trying to make a run for the street. I decided that then was as good a time as any to give counting to three a chance before I chose to just carry her against her will instead of letting her walk. Well, little Miss Intelligent sure showed me. I soon as I said, "one" she responded with, "two!" while masking my giggles I tried again and again she won me over.
She also loves to sing, one of the funniest/cutest things she does is sing with her eyes closed while swaying her head back and forth Stevie Wonder style. We've been trying to capture it on video but we've been unsuccessful this far. She can accurately sing up to the letter G in the alphabet, after that she just hums or da da das her way to the end.
Here she is thoroughly enjoying her water table a couple weekends ago.
Savannah and I babysat this little cutie pie a couple weeks ago, she absolutely loved helping me (and sitting in his carseat)...but that doesn't make us any more eager to give her a sibling.
Someone finally let me put pigtails in her hair, I almost died from cute overload. She isn't crazy about me putting them in but once the 20 seconds of screeching and "owie" are over she doesn't seem to mind them.
These photos are from the playground at the mall, where I may or may not have had to put some older kids in their place for almost trampling the younger ones, and Dick’s Sporting Goods.
When we enclosed the porch we lost a place to hang Savannah’s swing and she was definitely disappointed. We had the swing sitting out in the yard until we could figure out a new place to hang it and she would go in sit in the swing and look up at us with such a pitiful little look that a few times we actually picked up the ropes and swung her, desperate times call for desperate measures.
We had planned to just put a couple 4 x 4s in the ground but then we realized that metal swing sets were surprisingly affordable and didn’t require digging holes and pouring concrete. And, it came with a slide that she LOVES so it’s double the fun!
The first weekend in February we headed back down to Disney World for my birthday, Savannah did MUCH better this time around. We left around 9 a.m. Saturday morning and hoped she would nap in the car on the way down, no such luck. We met my sister, brother-in-law and nephew at the hotel and all crammed into their SUV to ride to the park…the kids were in their car seats and everyone except for James and I had a comfortable seat and a seatbelt, I’m sure we looked like a bunch of clowns climbing out of the vehicle.
Anyway.
We arrived at Epcot around 2:00 (I’m still not sure how we managed to lose almost 2 hours) and hoped to ride a few rides there and then head to the Magic Kingdom. Unfortunately we never made it past Epcot because we really wanted to ride Soarin’ and decided to get the fast pass to get us on at 5:15. We had a great time at Epcot though, Savannah took a nice long nap in the stroller and James and I were able to ride quite a few rides and even try out a Segway while Grandma sat with the Princess. Thanks, mom!
She is obviously still too young to understand Disney or really even care where we are but she does love hotel rooms. So much un-kidproofed space to explore! Telephones, electrical outlets and cabinets, oh my! And she loves to push the buttons on the elevator and run up and down the halls over and over and over again. Any hotel is her Disney World.
We are great parents and managed to take a total of 1 picture and it was on the monorail. But, in our defense, she was asleep most of the time at the park and then it started raining so we didn’t want to bust the camera out.
I was able to get a couple of Savannah and her cousin Fisher in the hotel, clearly she wasn't so sure about him hugging her.
The third week in January had us traveling to see Gammie & Papa for his retirement ceremony and luncheon. Thirty-five years as a civilian in the Air Force is definitely worthy of a celebration with plenty of pomp and circumstance! The ceremony was held in the Museum of Aviation adjacent to the base which is basically a hangar. Savannah and her cousin, Adler, really enjoying running around and exploring all the helicopters and planes before the ceremony started. Adler was the model 3 1/2 year old sitting quietly for 95% of the ceremony, Savannah on the other hand acted every bit her 18 months. She was not at all interested sitting and playing with the multitude of quiet toys we brought, instead she wanted to continue to run around and explore. Our choices were either force her to sit on our laps which would surely cause her to pitch a fit or quitely let her explore the area behind where everyone was seated, we chose the latter. While the guest of honor disagrees, we know it was a total distraction and we were thoroughly embarrassed.
We stayed with Gammie & Papa through the weekend and as always we had a great time despite our little angel not sleeping well, something we've come to expect anytime we go out of town. Saturday morning we visited Go Fish which is basically an educational center that promotes fishing opportunities throughout their state. We really enjoyed the the interactive games and Savannah loved the big indoor tanks.
After the Go Fish we decided to drive over to the Ag Center and realized they were having a horse show, since we had nothing better to do and thought Savannah should have her first look at horses we decided to stop in and check out the action.
Gammie & Papa arrived on New Year's Day to celebrate Christmas and 'help' us screen in our back porch! By 'help' I mean they did most of the work because we had to go back to work a couple days after they arrived, thankfully James was able to take a half day one day during the week too. I'm not skilled in saws and drills so I provided the child care, snacks, drinks and supervision while everyone else worked their tails off. We felt terrible because it rained almost every afternoon delaying their progress, they didn't want to leave us with a lot of work to do so they just kept extending their trip day after day. They completely finished up on Thursday (so quick!) and headed home. They did such and amazing job and we are SO thankful for their hard work and expertise.
More presents!
This is 'baby', she took to the doll immediately and is such a good little mommy.
work in progress...
Supervisor in training
Somewhere I have a picture of the finished product, eventually I'll find it and upload it here. :)
