19 months

Oh man, keeping up with this blog is so hard!  And I know that it will be even harder once my job starts, so many apologies in advance.  :) 

Elise is now 19 months and she is just becoming more amazing, joyful, and cute everyday.  How is that even possible?  She's been sick the past few days and so we've been getting A LOT of cuddle time in lately.  When she's sick, all she wants to do is nurse and cuddle for hours straight.  It's amazing.  She also hates taking her medicine, which we've been giving her every 3 hours (alternating between Tylenol and Motrin) and she says "all done medicine" all day long everyday. 

She's been speaking in sentences now.  It was funny, one day she woke up and realized that she could put words together.  Those first few days, she did a lot of experimenting and it was so cute.  For "mama bybye" she would be like "mabybye...mamabye...mamamabye...mamabyebyeb....mama byebye!  mama byebye!"

When she's sick, she also gets REALLY talkative and so she's just been a little chatterbox.  It cracks us up.  She says the sweetest and funniest things.  She has such a sweet and tender personality that is really emerging.  I don't think she's had a full-blown tantrum yet and she's mostly a very good-natured kid.  Other than wanting mommy, she rarely cries, even when she gets hurt.  She is still incredibly clingy and attached to mommy and has a lot of separation anxiety.  I think this is just part of her personality and will be sensitive to this part of her as she develops.  I used to think these things were cultivated by the parents but now that I'm a mom, I know that Elise has been this way from day 1.  I'm always amazed when I see other infants sitting happily in their bouncy seats because Elise would never tolerate those and always needed to be held.  Of course as a mom, I don't mind.  :)

There are soooo many funny stories that happen every single day but I'm too busy to document them.  But here's one at the top of my head:  Yesterday, Bryant took Elise to the zoo.  It's their thing.  She wanted to pet all the animals, especially the bears, and she had a hard time coping with the fact that she had to enjoy them from a distance.  Later that day, I took her to her new daycare to check it out, and there were 2 huge stuffed animal bears sitting on the ground.  I think she thought they were real because she asked me if she could pet them and I said yes.  She tip-toed up to them, and stared right into their eyes for a good while.  Then, she started to gently pet them while saying "hi".  When they wouldn't respond, she stared into their eyes again, and then walked away and told me, "beoh night night".  My heart melted.

At her 18 month old appointment, she was about 25 pounds and 32.5 inches.  My doctor refuses to tell us what percentile that puts her in because she thinks that knowledge makes parents neurotic, haha.  I think Elise is on the heavier side, at least compared to the other girls her age at the church nursery.  That's a surprise to me because she's still a picky eater!  But she loves what she loves (carbs) and hates what she hates (vegetables).  Just recently, I've been allowing her to enjoy sweets more, including ice cream and cookies.  She has a hard time saying the "k" sound so she calls them "ice peen" and "doodies".

I am loving this age the best, but I've been saying that about every stage!