22 months already!!

I can't believe my baby is 22 months already...in just 2 more months she will be 2!!!
Technically, she will be 22 months tomorrow (on July 5th) but we leave for Dallas tomorrow so I won't have time to blog and I like to do this for each month so I remember all of her favorite things. Right now-Sesame Street and mermaids top the list of Leeza's favorite things. Her food preference seems to change with the wind. She always seems to like Mac and Cheese, and this week she loved Cinnamon and Raisin mini bagels. Last week she loved grapes, and ate bowls of them, but this week she wouldn't eat any grapes. She loves her vanilla milk and drinks a lot of that-and she likes pretzels with peanut butter as a snack (like her daddy!) She continues to be the best sleeper-sleeping 12-14 hours a night and typically an hour and a half to a 2 hour nap. She likes going to Gymboree class and Kindermusic-but still doesn't always like to do what everyone else is doing. When Sean joins us, he says she's not very good at class partcipation. However, since I've been going with her for many months, I see an improvement (most of the time!) She is defintely not one of the best behaved kids in the class, so I am not sure she'll ever be a teacher's pet like her mother was. :)



I can tell she's getting closer to the age of 2, as her new favorite word is No! She will even nod her head YES when while she is saying no. It's pretty funny! Shse is learning to control her temper though, so that's good.

She is also getting sneaky. Today, I was packing for our trip to Dallas and she was "helping" but I guess she got bored. I was in my closet and came out and she was gone. Joe was outside in the backyard so I started calling her name. It always scares me when there is silence. Sean found her...she had gone into our guest room , but had swiped my chapstick off the bathroom counter and when Sean opened the door, she jumped and was putting on many layers of chapstick. STINKER!




I think the BIGGEST change in Leeza this past month is her affection. She has been really huggy and kissy-and she has learned how to give a really good hug. She really hugs you with all of her lil heart and she's learning empathy. Sean was faking crying tonight and he was saying "mommy, hug me, kiss me" and Leeza was reading with Daddy and she got very upset and insisted on stopping the book and wanted to hug Sean. It was sweet!

Her attention span is also getting much longer. She actually watched an entire episode of Sesame Street this week-more than once! She still shows zero interest in any other show, but is a loyal Elmo and Sesame Street follower. It's fine by me because I really like Sesame Street. Her favorite way to watch is sitting on my lap with a blanket over us. I love how snuggly she likes to be. She also likes to plop in our laps and read several books at a time. She's rather particular about which books (and has DEFININITE opinions on which books she likes) but I'm so happy I have a snuggly book reader. Sean is a bit heavy to sit in my lap anymore. :)




Physically-she is defintely growing and her feet are getting wider. The other day, Sean cracked me up when he told me to "check the baby percentage thingies cuz Leeza has the FATTEST BABY FEET HE'S EVER SEEN.". Her hair is growing too-more like getting thicker-not so much getting longer. She is also getting stronger. She is able to pull herself totally out of the pool now (thanks to lots of practice with Emily during swimming lessons). She had a great week in swimming lessons this week, but still isn't swimming on her own. We leave for Dallas tomorrow to visit my family for a week, so we'll work with her in my parents pool. We have 3 days of lessons left and I have a feeling I will end up adding at least another week. She does so much better learning from Emily than she does from me. I guess this is why I would not be a very effective home school teacher. :)

We celebrated our first 4th of July with our newest American citizen today-mostly in the pool, with a cookout with family over. We didn't even bother going to see fireworks-Leeza was exhausted from an afternoon in the pool and most likely the loud sounds would freak her out. I was lazy with the camera and didn't get any pictures of her in her cute red white and blue...but she did look pretty cute. :) Joe got a few fireworks and we did those in the yard so Sean wouldn't feel jipped. We can also see a few of the big ones from our yard-so it was still festive.

Here she is in her cute lil Etsy mermaid dress-and she snagged her big brother's shoes.