My little Annie Ashton (aka Bo-nanie, aka Sweets) is 18
MONTHS OLD, a whole 1.5 yrs! As long as
she is in diapers, she’s still my baby but let’s face it… she’s pretty much a
full blown toddler and hardly a baby anymore.
I love each day and month she gets older, the older she gets, the quicker
the time goes by too. As strange as it
sounds, I’m still looking forward to her getting older, although I love this
age, I can’t wait until she can talk more and I can get inside her little mind
and for all those funny little conversations we will have when driving home
from daycare each day. I think 2 will be
a fun age with her.
As usual, nothing has change with our little fire cracker,
she still feisty and a true handful! I
try not to compare her to others her age but its hard not to at times to notice
how much more of a handful she is than others her age. I love that demanding personality though;
she’s really a force to be reckoned with but also a ball of happiness. She’s the perfect combo of dynamite and joy
all wrapped up in her 2 foot little self.
I hate to admit it, but we’ve kinda gone against the grain
on one parenting aspect. And it’s
TV. Aaron and I encourage her daily to
watch TV, she is incredibly clingy and wants us right next to her at all
times. But when Clifford the Big Red Dog
is on or Mickey Mouse Clubhouse, it’s like nothing around her exists. Honestly, Mickey and Clifford are our in home
babysitters, it’s fantastic to turn that on and be able to make dinner without
her leached onto my leg. So maybe TV is
frowned upon by other parents but we are all about it. Lately though, we realize that we may push it
too much on her, she now runs up to me with the remote, pointing at the TV not
be satisfied until I turn on a cartoon for her.
I’m honestly not too worried about it, her TV time is really minimal when
looking at her day as a whole; she spends all day at daycare burning energy and
exploring and we still do plenty of playtime at home too.
So funny story on that subject, one day I come out to the
living room to find Aaron with the remote and as seriously as he could be he
goes, “I’m so mad right now. I can’t
find that episode where Donald builds a clubhouse, it’s my absolute
favorite.” I looked at him blankly and
was like “Are you serious right now?!”
My word, we need some more adult interaction in our lives if we as
parents are obsessing over our favorite Mickey Mouse episodes!
Annie is really into puzzles right now. Not jigsaw puzzles but the 10 piece ones to
fit into the shapes. She can whip a
puzzle together in no time. Even taking
5 puzzles and mixing all the pieces up and she can slap all 5 puzzles together
simultaneously. I love watching her
little mind work as she holds onto a puzzle piece, searching all 5 puzzles for
the right spot. It’s really incredible
to me.
She still loves books and we spend about 30 min every night
reading in her room. It used to drive me
nuts when she would flip a page on me when reading to her and I would fight her
on it, insisting that we have to finish each page before we could move on. And if she got up and left me, I would have
to sit and finish the kid book by myself because my OCD couldn’t handle leaving
a book unfinished. I’m totally over
that now and can rehearse books from memory while Annie flips thru the
pages. I love that she can sit and read
with me for a half hour every night, completely enthralled in it.
Annie still isn’t into toys much. She likes legos and her play kitchen but the
only things she likes about her play kitchen is opening all the doors and
finding play food inside and rearranging it.
She’s really into organizing and actually does a really good job of
picking up her toys and books for me. I
feel like she’s my little mini-me when it comes to that type of stuff.
Annie still isn’t talking much, she knows and understands a
lot of what we are saying. There is
still the Mamas, Dadas, water, hi, ya for yes, uh-oh, up, and lots of animal
noises but not saying the names of the animals, head shaking no or yes, and
using baby sign language still to tell us please, thank you and more. When I ask her where Charley is, she points
to the dog, when I ask her where is Annie, she points to herself, she
definitely knows who everyone is and probably comprehends even more than we
realize. She certainly babbles a lot and
even reads books to herself out loud, I’m not worried about her lack of
vocabulary yet, she’ll get there soon enough.
She is still an incredibly finicky eater. There have been weeks where life has been so
chaotic with all the house stuff that my bad parenting has allowed her to live
on hot dogs for a week because they are her favorite food and it’s the one
thing I don’t have to fight her on to get her to eat. I’ve even worried about how I may be
potentially setting her up for a career in the 4th of July televised
hot dog eating contest, good gravy please Annie don’t ever be one of those
people that shove 64 hot dogs in their mouth in 10 minutes, that would not be a
proud moment for me!
What I love about this age is that even though she fights us
on stuff and gets upset when she doesn’t get her way, she still runs to us for
a hug during those tears. I’ve told
Aaron that this won’t last for long and we need to cherish those little
comforting tear-filled hugs because soon enough she will be kicking/hitting us,
rebelling and running from us, saying who knows what when we don’t let her get
her way. Aaron is way better at not
giving in to her than I am. I may be
more of the spoiler and give-in to her every request where Aaron is better at
standing firm saying no you cannot have a 6th hog dog, eat your
veggies while she wails because she can’t finish the entire package of Oscar
Myer hot dogs in one sitting.
#Thestruggleisreal.
She also seems to have an opinion awful early on what she
wears. If it has a dog on it, she won’t
fight me. (It’s the only clothes I let
her wear with animals is the ones with dogs on them, outside of her PJs). If I try to put her in plaid or stripes, she
screams and yells. It’s like how is she
so opinionated in her clothing already?!
This isn’t good… I find her a lot
of times in her room and she is going thru her clothes, putting on several
pairs of PJs on over each other. She’s
especially obsessed with shoes, kinda like her Father is. She seems to already be a little fashionista
and voices when she doesn’t like my outfit selection for her.
 |
| Dog on shirt approval |
 |
| 2 shirts/2 pants, this girl loves to make her own style |
Our little Annie is really something. I just love her to pieces! That little demanding personality is really
something but it’s what makes her Annie and her smile melts my heart every
single time. Happy 18 months
Bo-naners! Mama and Dada are over the
moon for you, every single night we tell each other how lucky we are and how
special you are to us!
