22 months

At 22 months, Libby weighs 23.5 pounds. I don't know how tall she is, but she did finally grow out of her infant car seat. I'll have to start measuring her against a wall to keep track of her height.

Other physical characteristics: She has impressive fine motor skills. For as long as she's been coloring, she's always held pencils and crayons correctly and can draw very small circles. She runs and bounces everywhere and likes to dance in circles. She is great at taking her shoes and socks off and can sometimes get her shoes on without help, depending on the shoe. She hasn't figured out how to undress yet, which is probably a good thing, but also means I think we're a ways away from potty training. No rush on my part, though...I'd rather not deal with potty training while taking care of a newborn.

She has a great vocabulary and is starting to form simple sentences. She likes to identify everything, so she's constantly pointing and naming things and describing what's going on around her. Recently at breakfast, she said "Mommy egg all done" as I took the last bite of my egg.

She's using her hands more as she "talks" which is downright adorable. She does know some sign language, but most of her gestures are made up and have no meaning that I'm aware of. Today, she happened to be signing rain and thunder (unbeknownst to her, of course), so I pretended that's what we were talking about:

[I've been trying FOREVER to upload the video, but my internet might possibly be slower than dial-up and tells me there are 374 minutes remaining. Come back in about a year and there might be a super cute video here.]

[Update: It only took about 8 hours, but the video is finally up!]

Things she likes: pom poms (the fuzzy balls used for crafts), hair elastics (she calls them headbands), pebbles, or anything else small and round that she can roll between her fingers. She also likes to carry marbles in her toes, like a monkey. When I got Libby out of bed this morning and she started walking around, she kept saying "ow." Upon examination, I found marbles in the bottom of her footie pajamas. She likes to go for walks in the stroller, play at the playground, and look for bugs.

She has been going to a swim class for toddlers for about 6 months now (it's more of a "play in the water" class than a "learn to swim" class) and LOVES to jump in the pool. She can kick her legs and stroke with her arms, and can float on a noodle unassisted for short periods. And just a couple of weeks ago, we had a big breakthrough in which she finally let me hold her in a backfloat position. I've dunked her a couple of times, which she has hated, but she doesn't mind getting water in her mouth anymore and is so much more confident in the water.

Current favorite foods: greek yogurt with jam, oranges, bananas, fruit leather, cereal, berries of any kind, tomatoes, pickles, olives, and cheese.

Counting Games

Libby and I have started playing a game after her naps where she throws all of her stuffed animals and babies out of her crib and then I throw them back. She especially loves when I hit her on the head with the soft ones. (I haven't ever hit her with a hard one, but something tells me she wouldn't like that as much.)

The first time I did it, I counted the animals as I threw them back in, and Libby has picked this right up.

Anytime she counts, she starts at eight and goes to nine. Then repeats. Also, sometimes "eight" sounds like "ice."

St. Louis

Jared had a work meeting in St. Louis last week, so Libby and I tagged along to take advantage of the free hotel (and because I hate being left out) (and because there are actually things to do in St. Louis) (and because we wanted a vacation, despite having been home for only 5 days since our previous vacation).

We were able to visit the zoo twice, the science center, the art museum, the botanical garden, the Arch, and the children's museum. And when I say "we" I'm mostly referring to me and Libby. Jared had to do this lame thing called "work," but he was still able to go with us to a few places.

St. Louis was a great city. It's big enough to have tons of things to do, but not so large as to be overwhelming. I was able to get around downtown and the surrounding suburbs, by myself, in the rain, even when the GPS malfunctioned. Booyah! We'll definitely be going back.

Trip West + Painting a couch?

A few weeks ago, we made an impromptu trip to Utah/Idaho. Jared's parents had some furniture they were willing to give us and there were also a few things of his grandma's that were being handed down to us after her passing in September. We decided to make a vacation out of the trip, because there are always people to see and things to do when we go out west.

We were able to catch up with a few friends over the weekend we were in Utah (so sorry we couldn't see everyone we know and love in Utah!) and it was fabulous to have real, live friends to talk to. We are such loners these days! We also went on a beautiful hike with Jared's sister, Rachel, up to Elephant Rock in Bountiful. I was surprised I was able to do the 6 miles pretty easily, being pregnant and unused to the elevation! I was so glad we got to do this hike, because hiking in the mountains is probably the #1 thing I miss about Utah.

We got a couple nice pictures from the top of the climb, but tragically, my memory card got corrupted and I lost all my pictures from our vacation. Boo! Just imagine a picture of me with a pregnant belly, Jared carrying Libby in a backpack carrier, and Rachel, who is incredibly athletic and amazing and did this hike 2 days after running a marathon.

We also went boating with Rachel's family and Libby got to go tubing (in dad's lap). She was so adorable in her life jacket and had a good time sharing chips and cookies with her cousins on the boat.

We spent about a week in Idaho and hoped to be able to do some fun things like take Libby to the zoo and the lake and send Jared golfing with his dad, but it was chilly and windy and drizzly most of the time we were there. We did all go out for snow cones and Jared and I got to go out twice without Libby (the last time that happened was Thanksgiving!) so it was still a nice vacation.

We also spent quite a bit of time packing...dishes, furniture, all sorts of stuff that we were taking home with us. One of the big items we brought back was this couch:

It's long and comfortable and in remarkably good shape for being...50, 60? years old. The upholstery, however, is a bit, ahem, dated. I discovered upholstery spray paint and decided to give it a shot on 1 on the 2 coordinating chairs that go with this couch. Sigh. The results are disheartening. Jared says it looks even older than before. I can't post pictures yet, because I keep hoping it will get better with one more coat of paint. BUT, before I admit defeat, I discovered another method for painting upholstery that seems to have better results. I'm going to try it out on the other chair before tackling the mammoth couch. Unless anyone has a better idea for me, that is... Wish me luck!

Libby learned the word "no" about a month ago. Surprisingly, it has not been the terrible, terrible thing parents have told me it would be. (So far!) It's actually just really cute. Probably because she always says it in a sing-song voice.

Just now, Libby was sitting in her backpack carrier in the living room. (Yep, just sitting in it. She loves this thing.) She started fussing and I thought she wanted to get out. I asked her "do you want down?" Her response: "Down? Noooo (sing-song)." It might not quite be a sentence, but she's combining words and it's adorable.

Going for a walk in the backpack carrier

She does say no sometimes when we try to put her pajamas on at night, but it's really no worse than the flailing of arms and legs we usually get as a response. Instead, I feel almost proud that she is grown up enough to express herself. It's almost like she's a real person now. :)

Humor

 

 My daughter is really funny sometimes, like when she closes her eyes and bats her arms around to feel for things as if she's blind. (I promise we haven't been teaching her to make fun of blindness - don't know where she got this from!) It thrills me that she has a sense of humor, and I can't wait to see the things she comes up with when she can string together more than 2 words.

Partly, she's funny because she likes to imitate us. We read lots of books that have pictures of food in them. Awhile back, I started pretending to pick up the food and feed it to the characters on the page. Libby picked this up right away and does it every time now. She will also feed it to me, to herself, and to her baby dolls. This little habit turned out to be key in avoiding a meltdown last week.

We went to Ikea to buy a TV stand and while we were outside waiting for Jared to pull the car around, Libby saw 2 ladies with ice cream cones. At first, Libby lunged toward them and started grunting to make her desire known. But a light bulb seemed to come on in her head and she switched gears. She reached out her hand and pretended to grab the ice cream between her 2 fingers and feed herself. Not only was it hilarious to see, but I was also incredibly impressed with her ability to soothe herself. 

Zoo Trip

Libby's playgroup took a field trip to the Peoria Zoo. (Have I mentioned Libby's playgroup? It's for babies 0-3 years and it's part of the public school system. We meet at the preschool once or twice a week and Libby gets to play with all the sweet toys I won't buy her because they take up too much room at home.)

Anyway, this was by far the smallest zoo I've ever been to, but it still had plenty to entertain Libby for a couple of hours. As a bonus, there was a park nearby with one of those huge wooden playgrounds, complete with a sandpit.  Libby was giddy with excitement. One of my many beefs with our small town (and our rural area in general) is that there aren't any cool parks or playgrounds around. We had to drive an hour and twenty minutes to get to this zoo and playground. Sigh.....

But back to the zoo. The weather was gorgeous that day. Serious blessing because it was raining and in the 40s the rest of the week and then, bam - 80 degrees and sunny on the day of our field trip. Beautiful!

Libby had a special moment with the meerkats...