18 Months - Happy Half Birthday!

And just like that, she's a year and a half. She is becoming such a little person. A personality all of her own. Where do I even start!?

Every morning when I get her from her crib, she likes to empty out all of her "friends" as well. So I bend over and take out her bear, monkey, baby doll, lamb, Minnie, and whoever else joined her that night. I hold her and all the toys, and then she throws them all back in the crib.

I've never seen anyone eat yogurt as fast as she does. I will give it to her, walk out of the room for a minute, and when I get back, the cup is empty, she has thrown the spoon out, and is scraping every last bit out with her fingers.

One of the funniest things to her these days are fake sneezes. She will randomly start doing it, and then laugh at herself. One night we went to dinner with a friend, and she started doing it to try to make our friend laugh. She was such a show off!

Once she is done eating breakfast - or sometimes even before breakfast - she goes to the door and starts shouting "Oww oww oww oww", really fast, while signing 'outside'. The girl loves to be outside. As of late, her favorite thing to do is go see the neighbor's cages of pigeons.

She has started talking a lot! Some of the words are: ball, please, outside, baby, up, down, boo!, cracker, dog, and I love you(this one is the cutest. I say "I love you Eleanor", and she follows up with "umm um mama". There are more, but I can't quite think of all of them.

She likes to sit in the fridge while she eats her snacks. I don't blame her. It's usually pretty hot in this house.

She is already starting to recognize numbers and letters, thanks to the signing time videos and a few of her books and bath toys. The bath toys are what impress me the most. I'll ask her to find certain letters, and 9 times out of 10, she gets it right(I usually only ask her the ones I know she knows. About 8 different letters and 3 numbers).

She loves Frosty the Snowman. Maybe it's because snow is such a foreign concept to her, or maybe she just likes the songs and dancing. Who knows.

She knows her way around my phone and can navigate to my photo gallery/videos. She will scroll through them, then double tap the play button to play videos of herself. It is so funny seeing a tiny human understand technology.

She likes to stack things. Mostly her blocks and bath toys, but she's actually pretty good at it. There are times when I think Oh no, it's definitely about to topple, and then it doesn't. And then she stacks 3 more on top of it. Impressive.

She can get so sassy that the idea of the terrible twos is actually quite terrifying to me. If she doesn't get her way, she will throw her body all over the place and scream. Oh so dramatic.

She knows no stranger. She isn't afraid to approach anybody.

Just lately she has become such the water baby. Before, she used to spend most of her time playing in the sand, but now she heads straight for the water every time. Even in her clothes and shoes. She tries to jump over waves. She'll stand backwards and wait for the water to hit her feet. She plays, plays, plays, in the water, and it's so fun to watch.

In the middle of writing this, Eleanor woke up(doesn't usually happen, but tonight she went to bed later than normal, and that ALWAYS throws her off). I tried to go in w/o picking her up and just talk to her, and sing to her until she went back to sleep. Spencer does it all the time and it works great. Not with me. She jumps up and down while screaming and asking to be picked "UP!". I walked out a few times to see if she'd soothe herself on her own. Didn't happen. After 3 tries, I finally picked her up and rocked her until she calmed down. Then, when I thought she was asleep, she popped her head up, took her pacifier out, and gave be a big kiss on the lips. Not only did it melt my heart right then and there, but it made me feel so guilty for every other second I made her cry. It's good to know she appreciates me!