Our 20 Month-Old

After coming home today from school, our family went on a little bike ride and then got a chance to play outside for a while on our front steps.

Out on the front steps, things were peaceful and calm. There were neighbors playing, leaves scattered lightly on the ground, a crisp comfortableness in the air. Today,

Ellie actually smiled in her picture when I said "smile." She got this big, cheesy grin on her face, and I was lucky that my camera clicked quick enough to catch it. What a little lady she is turning into.

At 20 months...
- she can climb the bar stools in our kitchen without help (scary!)

- she is becoming more opinionated (LOVES stickers, LOVES circles ("big circles" and "baby circles"), does NOT love eating things that she doesn't want to eat)

- she is putting small sentences together that actually make sense - this is still surprising to me. She'll say "Mommy sit" or "Ellie see Daddy" and it is like a window is being opened into her brain.

- she LOVES to sing, or rather, loves to ask other people to sing. Ellie will occasionally fill in the blanks with lyrics, but do not ask her to sing a whole song. If you ask her to sing, she'll usually follow by stating something like "Mommy sing!"

- she is curious, robust, but when meeting new people, she is suddenly shy.

- she is a picky eater, preferring to eat a diet consisting of yogurt, cereal, hummus, and veggie sticks. She will sometimes eat pasta, applesauce, bananas, cheese, guacamole. She has never met a dessert she hasn't liked.

- she has started to experience a time out or two for throwing rocks into the flower bed and standing in her high chair.

- she likes to color, play with blocks, run, spin around, hold things in the crook of her arm, hug, get sad when she sees someone crying or hurt.

She is becoming more and more her own little person with each new day. What a wild ride it has been!

Cheers - Happy Fall!