22 Months

This is such a fun and at the same time challenging age!  Peyton is so interactive and funny and makes us laugh all of the time.  But she also definitely has an opinion and says "no" quite often.  Sometimes I wonder if "yes" is even in this girl's vocabulary!  On just about a daily basis I hear "no crib," "no clean diaper," "no read books," "no bath," "no cheese" (or whatever food I have asked her if she wants to eat.  She doesn't like brushing her teeth these days and is very opinionated as to which pajamas she wants to wear at night.  Oh, and she has a definite opinion on who does what around here---"daddy do it!" or "baby do it!"  Most nights she wants Matt to bathe her and do bedtime but every once in awhile she will ask for me to do it.

On the fun side of things, she is super girly and I LOVE IT!  She loves carrying a purse, talking on her pretend phone, wearing her sunglasses, having tea parties, and playing with her babies.  We have started drawing outside on the driveway with chalk and this has quickly become one of her favorite activities.  She also enjoys coloring inside and playing with stickers.  I can't figure out yet what I think she is going to be into as she gets older, but she absolutely LOVES music and always has.  She loves dancing and is constantly asking for me to turn music on for her.  She has also started trying to jump although most of the time she can't quite get both feet off of the ground.  She likes to do forward flips on the floor which makes me wonder if she would like gymnastics.  She gets super excited to see both sets of grandparents, and is constantly asking to go to GP and Granddad's house or call Nana and Pops on the ipad.  And speaking of ipad...this is something that she has started playing with that I have mixed feelings about.  Apparently Matt showed her how to "play" Angry Birds one day, and I use the term "play" very loosely, and now she wants to play "birds" ALL of the time whether it's on the ipad or one of our iphones.  She knows how to unlock the screen on our phones and can open the app for Angry Birds and several other games although she can't really play any of them by herself.  A few other games that she likes to open on the ipad/iphone are a paper toss game where you try to throw a piece of paper into a trash can, a golf game where she likes to watch the demo at the beginning of the game, and a sounds game where three items are shown and you hear a noise and then touch the item that corresponds with the sound (this game she can actually play and I justify it by fact that she is kind of learning something right!?!?)

 Something that I am super proud of is that P can count to 10!  In fact, she has even counted up to 13 all by herself!  We are working on colors now but she likes to call everything pink and when I say it's not pink she says "purple."  She also has started singing along to her music in the car and every once in a while will just bust out singing "Twinkle Twinkle Little Star."  She has gotten very good at saying "thank you" and she even says "bless you" when I sneeze.  I am constantly amazed by Peyton and am so thankful to have been blessed with such a sweet child.

"I'm Ready!"

This morning P and I had a late start---she didn't wake up until 8:20!!  Well truth be told she actually woke up at 7 but when I got her out of her crib she laid her head down on me like she was still tired so I laid her down in my bed and I laid next to her and she drifted back to sleep almost immediately.  Once she was up we hurried and ate breakfast and got dressed because we were meeting my cousin and his twin boys at the Birmingham Museum of Art for a playdate.  My cousin had told me that it was pretty cold there so I had packed P a sweater in her diaper bag, and as I was finishing getting everything ready for us to leave she asked to put her sweater on so that's what I did.   Then I turned my back to get something and when I turned back around she was standing there with her purse on her shoulder, the phone in one hand, and her lovey in the other.  This little girl CRACKS me up!!!

McWane Center

This morning we met my sister-in-law Becky and her three boys at the McWane Center.  The only other time that P has been there was back in February for nephew's birthday party so I was excited to see what she would think about it since that was several months ago.  We didn't get far from our house before I turned around to see this

Peyton took an 1.5 hour nap last night at 5:45 and didn't settle down until 9:30pm and then was up early this morning at 6:15 (she doesn't normally wake up until 7:30ish).  Needless to say this little girl was tired by the time we got in the car to meet her cousins and Aunt.  I woke her up once we got there and thankfully she was in a good mood.  I knew that we were in for a crowd when I saw three school buses lined up outside and it was confirmed once we made our way inside the building.  We headed upstairs to the Dora the Explorer exhibit first.  Peyton was pretty much all over the place, moving from one thing to the next.....until she saw the big yellow car.  The car was about the only place that she stayed for more than 5 minutes.  She didn't like sharing the car with other kids though.  If another kid came up and wanted to sit with her she would have a fit.  Likewise if she got up and went to sit back in the car and couldn't because the seat was already taken.  Looks like we are going to have a time learning to share our toys and give others a turn.

 P also enjoyed playing in the "rainforest" with her cousin Will.  Will loved to show me how easily he could make P laugh saying "It's easier to make Peyton laugh than it is to make Jack laugh."  Jack is Will's 9 month old brother who hung out in his stroller most of the time and barely made a peep.  She also really liked the little purple slide that was just the right size for her.

After we had had enough of playing upstairs, we headed down to the first floor to play in the indoor playground area.  Peyton started off wanting to play in the big water table but after she tried to drink the water and climb into the water I decided that we needed to find something else to occupy her so we joined Will and Andy in the giant spaceship.  After playing in there a little while we made our way down to the aquarium where we checked out the sharks and the octopus.  By this time everyone was starting to get tired and hungry so we wrapped things up and headed home.  I think that a great time was had by all!

Miss Priss!

Tonight after dinner Peyton was playing with her toys and before we knew it she had accessorized herself with her jewelry box, sunglasses, and purse.  If I didn't know better I would think this little girl was ready for a night out on the town!  

Laundry Fun

Who knew doing laundry could be so much fun?!?!

 



4th of July

This 4th of July didn't quite start or end as we had planned.  I woke up in the morning and realized I had fallen asleep with my contacts in.  Although this isn't the first time I've fallen asleep with my contacts in, this time was different.  My eyes were super red and were killing me and I could hardly keep them open.  I knew pretty quickly that something was wrong.  I tried calling my eye doctor but of course didn't get anyone since it was a holiday so we decided that we were going to skip going to the lake (our original plan for the day) and head to the emergency room at the Eye Foundation.  On our way out the door my brother called and said that they would take Peyton to the lake with them so we quickly packed her a bag and dropped her off at his house and made our way to the Eye Foundation. 

 

Once we got there we ran into my cousin's wife who was there for a scratched cornea.  She was leaving and shortly after talking to her we were called back.  The nurse gave me some numbing drops which helped tremendously with the pain.  Eventually the doctor came in and after examining my eyes he told me that I had a small infection in my left eye.  He acted like it was pretty much no big deal and that it might even get better on it's own but he went ahead and wrote me a prescription for antibiotic drops and we were on our way. 

 

Since the numbing drops had kicked in and I was feeling pretty good we decided to head on up to the lake.  We got to the lake just after lunch time.  Unfortunately, it didn't take long before the numbing drops wore off and I was right back where I started---in A LOT of pain!  I pretty much spent the rest of the day laying inside with my eyes closed.  Poor Peyton didn't nap all day and was exhausted when it came time for us to leave.  My mom asked P if she wanted to go lay down in her bed and she said "mmhmm" so before we knew it my mom had taken her into her room and she was sound asleep on the bed.  I think it was around 6 or 6:15 when this happened, and after much debate, Matt and I finally decided to leave her and let her spend the night with GP and Granddad.  

 

 

Much to everyone's surprise Peyton stayed asleep until after 7 the next morning!! Although P got plenty of sleep, she was the only one---my mom said that P was on top of her and my dad the whole night and that neither of them got any sleep haha.  While my parents made their way back home with Peyton, Matt took me to follow-up with my eye doctor.  My left eye was feeling much better but I was still having a lot of pain in my right eye.  After having my eyes examined again, my eye doctor told me that I had a bacterial infection that was contagious and it had spread from my left eye to my right eye.  Now doesn't that just sound like a lot of fun?!?!  The best part was that he told me that I couldn't wear eye makeup or my contacts for the next week until I were to follow back up with him.  I had gotten so used to wearing my contacts that I hadn't had my eye glass prescription updated since 2004!  Needless to say the next item on our list of things to do was to get some new eye glasses so I could see!  Hopefully things won't be quite so eventful on Labor Day! 

 

20 Months

ROUGH.  That is the only word I can think of to describe this last month.  While this past month has brought on some new, fun things with P, it has also been not my favorite month.  I'm not sure how much of it is attributed to our recent move (make that second move in a month) or her age, but my guess is that it is a combination of both.  Probably one of the worst new things to happen this month is that Peyton has pretty much refused to sleep in her crib for naps.  Now I know that it sounds silly to say that she has "refused" but by refused I mean that she won't have any part of napping in her crib.  No matter how hard I have tried, she just screams and cries and won't lay down and take a nap.  Even on the two days that she went to Mother's Day Out and was worn out she still would not sleep in her crib.  She will fall asleep the second we get in the car but you better believe that as soon as I bring her back in the house and lay her down she is awake!  What has started happening is that she will get so worn out by the end of the day, she will finally give in and take a nap at 5 or 6pm.  Of course that means that she in turn will then stay up late, thus starting another bad habit.  Also related to this not sleeping issue is the beginning of tantrums.  I swear at times I have thought "This is it.  We have hit the terrible two's."  She has started throwing fits of crying and screaming and nothing pleases her.  She wants her way and that's it.  In fact, at one time I was the one who always bathed her and put her to bed and now she won't let me come anywhere near her to do either of these things.  She wants Matt, and only Matt to bathe her and get her ready for bed.  If I try to do it she will scream and cry and as soon as Matt comes to her rescue she is fine!!  Did I already mention it's been a rough month?!?!

Giving bunny kisses

Now that I have talked about all of the not so fun things that have come about this month, I guess I should mention that there have been some really sweet and fun things that P has started doing.  Probably my most favorite change this month is that she has started to pretend play---she likes to have tea parties and cook in her play kitchen and she is really talking up a storm, repeating a lot of what we say.  Some of her new phrases are "Oh boy," "cooking," "barking"(for when Ellie barks).  She has also started winking when we take her picture.  It's very funny!  All I have to do is tell her "say cheese!!" and she flashes me a smile and winks!  I don't have a clue where she got it from but it is hilarious!  It's becoming a slight problem though because I can't get her to smile anymore without winking so she has one eye closed in all of her pictures haha!

Say "cheese"!

S

Loving on Ellie

Sweet sisters