Have we entered the teenage years already?!

My little girl has developed an attitude.  I have no idea where it came from ;-)  She has begun screeching to get our attention, which is lovely when we're out in public.  I always said I wouldn't be one of those parents who try to reason with their young kids mid-tantrum, but for some reason I do.  I'll start trying to explain why now is not the time, and then realize...hey, I'm talking to a 20 month old.  She doesn't care.  She also apparently didn't get the memo that she is supposed to listen and obey.  Every time.  Don't get me wrong, she's not a terrible child.  Nick and I are very sensitive to her behavior, because it's important to us that she, you know, behave.  And she really does seem to act like she's about the turn 13.  I can only imagine what I have to look forward to.

It has been amazing for us to watch her development.  She's her own little person now, with distinct likes and dislikes, and moods and preferences.  She's still a picky eater, but it's not as bad as it was.  We're introducing new foods at dinner, and she usually looks at it, touches it, plays around with putting it on the fork or spoon, and sometimes will even put in up to her mouth.  After several attempts, I was successful at getting her to eat some corn.  Then the next time she wouldn't touch it.  She is so stubborn...she is her mother's child.  Tonight I put her green beans in her pudding, and she ate it up.  I also fixed fish sticks, which she loved (please don't judge...I spent many an hour fixing homemade meals, only for her to dump her plate on the floor.  Convenience foods are my friend).  She has gotten pretty good at feeding herself with a spoon, but still needs to master the fork.  Which is ok, because the fork foods can also be eaten with fingers.  There are some meals now that she can entirely self-feed.  It has made my life so much easier.

Her communication skills continue to amaze us.  She has been repeating most everything we say for awhile now, but she has picked up the meaning on a lot of the words and phrases now.  She says "I sorry" all the time, but we didn't think she knew what it meant.  But just this week, she's started saying it when she spills food or drops something.  It is so sweet.  She is saying sentences, albeit short ones.  When she is looking for something, she raises her arms and asks "Is?" to ask where it is.  She asks for specific foods and drinks, especially milk, water, fish (goldfish), chicken, pudding, oatmeal, yogurt, muffins, and grapes.  I can hum Rock a Bye Baby, and when I'm done she asks for "more baby."  Her favorite song is WKU's fight song (told you she's her mother's daughter...I am unspeakable proud), which she calls "Red Red" (her name for Big Red).  Anytime she sees anything related to WKU, she yells "Red Red...yay!"  She can see one of my Western t-shirts, a red towel, a cup from a game...and she just claps and gets excited.  I am so happy that she loves Big Red so much.  I think I have a theme for her 2nd birthday party!  It's just unreal to us how much she is able to communicate to us, and how clearly she does it.

She is still in that phase of wanting so badly to be independent, yet at the same time, scared to let me or Nick out of her sight.  You can literally see in her face that conflict that is going on inside her...it's funny to watch her think about things.  She is beginning to become a little shy with strangers, though not always.  Some days she still says hi to everyone we see, others she stays quiet.  I always feel like I have to make an excuse if she doesn't respond, which is stupid.  She has also finally started to form attachments to other people, besides just me and Nick.  She knows her grandparents names, and seems to get excited when we tell her she's going to visit.  She usually will let them pick her up now, and hasn't cried the last few times we've left her with one of them.  She loves my sister, and will just stare at her.  She always asks to sit in her lap.  She's also pretty attached to one of the girls in the nursery at church.  Which has made it easier for us to leave her, unless she's not there yet.  Then it's a toss up as to what she'll do.

I've been trying to work with her for a few minutes each day on some specific learning activities.  We started with the letter A (uppercase), which she will now recognize (if she wants to...her attention span is still not so long).  We read alphabet books, watched some videos, sang some songs, colored, and even painted and made our own apple shaker.  She loves to paint...anything but the object she's supposed to be painting!  That's how she prefers to color to.  Thank goodness for those Mr. Clean Magic Erasers.  We also have casually started working on numbers.  I count with her to 10 whenever I can, and she will now say three after I have counted one and two.  When I started counting, she will start putting up fingers, and pointing at things to count.  She is also able to recognize her name.  I try to write it out for her a lot so she sees it.  I am honestly amazed how fast she is able to learn new things.  I think babies and young kids are so awesome...I know at my age, I seem to be losing knowledge, not gaining any more.  Ha, maybe that's just me.

Sorry this has been such a long post, but it has been so incredible to watch her development and growth in just a few short weeks.  She literally learns something every day.