Let it Be: 21 Months!

Lexi is 21 months! Omg only three more months until she turns 2! How did that happen?! I guess I better get going planning a birthday party! :)

Lexi's speech has continued to improve this month. She's starting to string words together and make little sentences. The other day she said "I brush teeth" and "big puppy tail". It's so cute! She's also using words more to tell me what she wants. Most of the time I can tell what she's saying, even if it's not terribly clear, but sometimes I have no idea. Like today she kept saying "shay". I asked her to show me, but she didn't want to, so I still don't know what she was trying to say.

Tantrums continue to be a challenge. Sometimes it seems like she gets upset about nothing. Most of the time, though, she gets mad when she doesn't get her way. Last week I tried something new with her. I started giving her stickers every time she did something helpful or was well behaved. It's been working out really well so far! She loves earning them and looks so proud when she gets to pick out a new one. She's earned about five stickers each day (we started this last Monday) and today I let her turn them all in for a special new toy. She was so proud and so excited! I really like this because I'm rewarding her for being good, rather than punishing her for being bad all the time. It's all about positive reinforcement. It hasn't gotten rid of all the tantrums, but it defiantly has decreased the number of them.

Somethings she does to earn stickers:

Help feed the dogs and cats

Help make dinner

Help do laundry

Help do dishes

Patient and well behaved during outings to the store or at play groups

Patient when I tell her she needs to wait to do something

Telling me she needs a diaper change

Listening when I tell her to do something

Cleaning up her toys

Lexi is currently obsessed with the song "A Whole New World" from Aladdin. She constantly asks throughout the day to listen to "Ja" or Jasmine. I seriously have heard this song more times in the past month than I have my entire life! To put her down for a nap I dance with her around the living room. I have a playlist of princess songs that we listen to and she gets mad when Jasmine ends and the next song ends. I explain to her that "Jasmine will come back around, but that we need to listen to the other songs first." I like that song, but Momma can only listen to it so many times! Haha! I said it once and I'll say it again, they really need to make a Gloworm type toy that you can put your own music on. So that way I can put "A Whole New World" on it and Lexi can play it on repeat for herself to fall asleep to at night and I don't have to sit there with my phone playing it for her.

Speaking of sleep, we had a couple rough weeks here. At the beginning of the moth Lexi dropped our before bed nursing session. One night she didn't ask to nurse, so I followed her lead and didn't offer. I really wanted it to be her idea to drop these last two nursing sessions, so I was fine with it. The first three nights went really smoothly, no issues at all. But after that she started to take for ever to fall asleep. Normally she's out by 8:45, but she wasn't falling asleep until 10-10:30. Then she was waking up around 2 or 3am, when she had been STTN for months. She was waking up hungry and wanting to play. So, I started giving her a bedtime snack and than helped put her to sleep quicker. And honestly one night when she woke at 3am, I let her CIO and that seemed to fix that problem. So sleep is back to normal now! Thank goodness!! We're down to BFing 1x a day in the mornings now. She still asks for it, so I still let her. I'm going to give her until her birthday to drop this last one. After that if she's still going strong, I'll wean her down completely.

We're still working on colors and shapes. She has green down now, but still has trouble with red and yellow. She has circle and oval down, but calls squares rectangles. We're starting on numbers and letters, too. So far she has 1 and A. That's a good start, I guess!

Breakfast of choice: "kotch" & "staw-bees" (cottage cheese and strawberries)

Lexi can also say her name! It's gone from sounding more like Yahtzee to a discernible "lessie". That X sound is a tough one. At least she doesn't think her name is "you" any more :)

Pretty, pretty baby curls

Favorite books this month have been The Lion King, Nursery Rhymes, Clifford the Champion, and Twinkle Twinkle Little Star. Movies wise she's still obsessed with 101 Dalmatians and really likes Aladdin. She loves that Lady, Tramp, Jock, and Peg all make cameo appearances in 101.

Lexi has been doing well with her social. She interacts with kids at Kindermusik, and she even danced with some other kids at story time this past week! That was a first! Toddler time play group finally started back up last week, too. She had fun, but she wasn't overly interested in the other kids. It was only the first week, so hopefully she'll warm up more this week.