Kayla's 3 months shy of being a 2 year old! (21 months!)

It's getting pretty weird/awkward to tell people how old Kayla is.  One year makes her sound too young, even one and a half does.  But 21 months sounds strange and ridiculous and "she'll be 2 in January" is too long!  I say 21 months but I kinda hedge it "oh, um, she's like 21 months (insert sheepish, i know it's ridiculous to say 21 months, grin here.).  But, alas, that's what she is.  Not 1 and not quite 2.  And as you saw from last week's post - she's definitely a toddler. 

She's a lot of fun these days, but she's also a handful.  She's fascinating to watch sometimes and other times you look at her and wonder "who is there and where did my daughter go?"  She seems so smart sometimes and other times you kinda wonder if there's a screw loose upstairs!  Toddlers are definitely a prime example of opposites! 

Anyway, what's she up to these days?  Well, she started, barely started, engaging in pretend play.  And, actually I don't know that I'd consider it that.  But she does have a thing with her animals these days.  She's tried to feed them, puts them in the swing and the chair, drags them around, and piles them up around her. A month or two ago she didn't play with most of her stuffed animals but I guess she opened her eyes.  Though she does prefer the giant ones to the ones her size.

She's also a brave little girl!  She loves to go down the slides that I think are too big for her and when we went to the pumpkin patch and rode one of the rides that swing you around in a circle, and then you can turn  your little car in a circle too, she LOVED it!  Seriously, the ride started and she laughed and screamed and had a huge grin on her face.  It was so cute!  (Too bad it's like the carousels and you can't get a good picture b/c of the speed and the need for a flash.  Since we only got 1 picture I'm saving it for the pumpkin patch post.  Hopefully the one of us on the slide gets the point across.)

She is getting so much better at interacting with her brother.  She rubs his head or stomach when he cries, brings him toys, shows him books ... and today while we were reading before naptime, she was trying to hold his hand.  It was sooooo flippin cute!  (Yea, I don't usually say flippin, but I'm giving it a shot.)

(No, this wasn't naptime, but another time she was holding his hand.  Apparently she likes to do this!)

She's decided she doesn't want to smile for us to take her picture.  I've made peace with the fact that most of the pictures are of her running at the camera trying to look at the picture, screaming at me not to take the picture, standing there not looking at me, or staring at me like "haven't I done this a million times before?"  One day she'll change her mind.  And until then I tell her to scream or I catch her when she's running and happy or in a good mood and really enjoying peek a boo (how does she still enjoy that game?)!

She's mimicking us more and more all the time.  I think I've written about this before, but today when she mimicked me while I was mimicking her it solidified it.  Well, that in addition to the fact that she mimics her friend Zoe too - wants whatever snack she has, wants to go where she is, would probably ask me to dress her like Zoe if she knew she could do that (though she already does because Zoe's mom gives me a lot of Zoe's old clothes!  Thank you, Kelly!)

She calls Zoe "Zazoo", her book Cinderella "rella", buckets "buckies", snacks "nacks", pasta "pata", and elephants "effie".  No idea where Zazoo came from!  And, just in the last couple days she's add "see dat" to her repertoire.  She used to just say "see, see" but she's expanding.  :-)

Is obsessed with her neck.  Not sure why.  She loves to touch it, have you touch it, put stickers there, put food there, points to it all the time... neck, neck, neck.  I don't get it.  I do wonder if it hurts though, maybe she's trying to tell us something.  She's also, though slightly less, obsessed with her elbows.  Wants us to wipe them, wants to wash them in the sink, shows them to us.  Neck and elbows.... isn't the saying "she's all knees and elbows?"

She's STILL obsessed with stickers!  Thank you to my mom, grandmother, and aunt for all sending her sheets of stickers for Halloween!  We were running low!  :-)

She definitely prefers her food luke warm.  If it's anywhere near hot she says so and blows on it, or hands it back to us to blow on it.  I gave her an ham, egg, and cheese muffin one day and she let it sit out in the stroller for a good 20 minutes before she ate it.  What's up with that?  Gross!

She can turn on and off most lights in the house now, go up and down the stairs by herself (though we still don't like it b/c she could get excited or try to play and fall), but thankfully hasn't learned how to open doors yet.  I'm sure that day will come!

I'm sure there's a lot more to write about but I can't think of it right now.  There might be additions over the next couple days but until then...