21 months

I have to say that this month has just flown by. Surprising! Coming back from a month of vacations, I expected this month to drag by, but the weather has been nice and warmish, and we have been able to enjoy the Olympics and be outside quite a bit.

I'm smiling just like Georgia... when she does her goofy smile

Weight: 27.2 pounds
Height: Somewhere between 35 and 36 inches. Measured by myself at home.... doesn't work too great with a wiggly toddler!
Shoes: size 7

This month was a little unusual for us - Georgia had a lot of babysitters! Dave and I went to two Olympic events, and we left Georgia one day for 8 hours, and the other day for 5 or so. Another day, Dave and I ventured into the city and left Georgia with another friend for 4 hours. She actually has done amazingly - according to our friends she doesn't cry at all (okay, only when one of them put her in bed.... and that was only for a minute or two!).

Georgia and Annabelle at the park

We also started doing some night weaning. We had a couple nights in a row where I was gone in the evening and Dave put her in bed using a cup of warm milk. She actually did great and started sleeping through the night! We have been putting her in bed now with milk (instead of nursing) for about 3 weeks. She seems to be doing great and actually sleeps a whole lot better (my favorite part about this month!)

Her favorite word this last week has been "NO!" which is usually directed at some unknowing child on the playground. Sharing is not one of her strengths. That "No!" has come in handy though, for example, when an older kid was trying to give her an unwanted hug.

So proud of how full her mouth is (well, it isn't really, in this picture....) 

Georgia had her first sentence this month! She said, "More peach" and I started jumping up and down with joy! Since then she has been using a lot of two words together, and even a couple times has used three words together. Her vocabulary is growing by 5+ words a day and will often try to say any words that Dave or I use. Another phrase she said this morning was, "Bee! hold me!" when she saw a gnat flying around the kitchen. (She is terrified of bugs). I estimate her vocabulary to be at 150 words right now.

Tantrums are right around the corner for us. Georgia is quickly becoming very opinionated (did I mention she is strong-willed?) and will either shout "No" at us when we want her to do something she doesn't want to do, or will break down and cry. Its very difficult for her to sit in her highchair for all of dinner and she had a couple minute cry during the middle of dinner last night when we wouldn't let her get down.

She has been using her own name tons! She uses it when she wants to do something by herself (with no help from mom or dad) or when she wants to play with a toy that someone else is playing with. She will go up to the child and wait for a minute, then say, "Georgia" and then try to take the toy. Its like she's asking if they can share with her. I'm thankful she is nice about it, but most of the time the other child isn't too happy to share with her.

An example of a tantrum. She wanted to go walk to see the ducks and mom wanted to take a picture. 

Georgia knows about four shapes by name (heart, oval, circle and triangle) and more often than not she can name the correct colors of things (she knows yellow things, sometimes gets the other colors right). She also knows probably 4 letters: M, K, T, D. She doesn't know those by name, but rather the M is for Mommy and the K for Kate or Ky, likewise the T for Teresa or Tim.

Singing Songs

Georgia has a love of music, which is really fun for everyone who spends time with her because she will often break out in song.  One of her favorite songs is "The Wheels on the Bus". She inserts people/animals/things into the song. 

For example: "The Matt on the bus goes talk, talk, talk," or she might say "The baby on the bus goes eat, eat, eat". She is very peculiar about what it is we're singing about and the action they're doing. Some of her more unusual ones include, "The neck on the bus goes tickle, tickle, tickle" and "The oatmeal on the bus goes eat, eat, eat" It is a fun song to sing because most of the verses include people: Matt, Kyan, Nana, Baba, Kate, Avery, Annabelle, Nathan, Georgia, Mama, Dada, and the list can go on and on.

She is also getting really good at her ABCs. She has always loved the tune - she started singing Twinkle Twinkle Little Star many months ago. Most of the time there weren't words in it.... just the tune. And then she substituted one word in the song: Mommy, mommy, mommy, mommy, etc (sung to the tune of Twinkle Twinkle). And then she did the same with Daddy. Now she sings the ABCs. Here is a video of that. Its a little noisy. I took it in the car, and I couldn't let her see my phone otherwise she would stop singing. This was taken about a month ago, and you can imagine how much better she is at it now!

Immediate differences

After living in the UK for almost 2 years now, whenever we travel back to the US, I find the differences in culture glaring. Here's a few differences that I noticed this last trip.

1. I was shocked when I paid for something in US dollars and received 10 bills back and hardly any coins. In the UK, most of the time you get coins back when you pay in cash because the smallest bill they have is a 5. Coins in the UK are worth quite a bit, and although they are big, I can use them often. In the US, I had bills filling up my wallet!

2. One of the first things we noticed were how large the people were in the US. There are fewer overweight people in the UK (probably because of lifestyle differences and smaller portion sizes), although I would say most everyone in the UK is "normal". Most people wear little or no makeup and wear normal (yet European) clothing. There are of course the party/youth crowd which is a little different.

3. Wow did we travel.  I know that we don't have a car in the UK, but still I don't think we walked anywhere while we were in the US! We brought Georgia's stroller, but we didn't use it at all the entire time we were in the US. It was really nice to have it for the airports though. Seriously we drove everywhere and everyday several times. Everything is so spread out - church is 10 miles away, the grocery store is 1 mile, the mall is 10 miles, the park is 2 miles. The lifestyle in the US is just completely opposite to the one we have in the UK. In the UK, I rarely go outside of my 1-mile circle. There are 5 grocery stores within a 1-mile radius (although two of them are the size of a 7-11). Our church is literally across the street from our house.

4. Sizes! Sizes of everything are different. We were shocked more than once on the size of drinks, the size of food portions at restaurants, the size of cars, the size of the roads, the size of houses, and on and on. Honestly when we came back to the UK, I felt like a giant living in a small house. I know I've talked about how small our home is here in comparison, but I should do a post on houses sometime ;)

20 months

Sorry this is a couple days late. We have had a month of vacations and only got back home a couple days ago. I have to say that Georgia is a wonderful traveler - she completed her 4th round trip international flight! Honesty, I don't think we could ask any more of her. I will have to have a blog post soon about traveling (especially flights) with her.

Georgia loves dogs!

Weight: 27 pounds
Height: 34.5 or 35 inches (95% still)
Clothing: 24 months or 2T, some 3T (but they're big on her)
Teeth: still waiting on 2-year molars. I think they're beginning to bother her as she's been chewing on her hands, and has seemed to have a bit of trouble sleeping on occasion (although it could be travel-related, too).

Sleep: This one has been all over the place because of traveling. Most nights she was waking up 3-4 times.  I really hate jet lag. Georgia really suffers from it and has trouble sleeping at night when we travel. Naps though are usually quite long.

She loves climbing! Daddy said he didn't help her very much... he only worked as a spotter

Nursing: I am so glad that I am still nursing Georgia. Really, I have no clue what I'd do if I wasn't. We mostly nurse at night, and it helps calm her down and put her back to sleep when she is jet lagged. I mean, what else are you supposed to do when your child is waking up at midnight, 2am, 3am, 5am and you're staying in a hotel in a random city? Once she settles back to the right time zone, I am going to start the process of weaning her.

Her first time wearing a life vest! We went on a boat while in Wisconsin this month

Talking: It is amazing the changes she has made this past month. It is so fun seeing her grow in this area. When she is getting ready for bed, she has started to talk more and more to me (as we nurse). She often says peoples names as if she is remembering her day - who she saw, what she did. She is quite funny and we're starting to have conversations. For example, she'll fart and then say "diaper" (her word to tell us that something is going on down there) and I'll say "that's okay! everyone farts". Then she'll say, "daddy?" and I will reply, "yes, daddy farts." She'll think for a minute then say, "nana?" and I'll say, "yes, nana farts". This goes on and on until she lists everyone she knows.

Georgia kept asking Kyan to jump with her

Memory: I am continually shocked at how good Georgia's memory is. She remembers her friend Avery who used her potty seat way back the beginning of June. In the Wallaces neighborhood, there is a house that has a few goats. There are two different ways to get to the Wallaces house, and she knew when we were on the street with the goats and would ask about them.

We had a lot of pool time in California

Favorite things: Georgia is still a people person. She loves making new friends and now learns names quickly. In the morning when she wakes up she asks about her friends. When she draws pictures, she tells us she is drawing specific people. The other thing she just absolutely loves right now is climbing and jumping. She jumps off stairs, jumps off couches and chairs. She can climb into her highchair. She knows how to use the cargo net at the park.

playing in the water in California