26 months

Tracing over the Alphabet

I know I said I wasn't going to do month posts, but I was thinking about it. And why not? Not only do I like looking back and having a record of Georgia's accomplishments, it also provides a little insight into what our life was like for the month. So, I might still do them. Or not. We'll see how motivated/busy/how much free time I have ;)


Weight: 31 inches
Height: 37 inches

She is just looking so big to me!

Eating: we're getting a lot better! We read during mealtimes, which is a bit frustrating because it would be nice to relax a bit more, but reading really keeps her mind occupied. She eats more and is less picky when we read to her. She is also trying new foods and actually telling me, "I like it!" So, that is wonderful!

JUMP!

Health: Georgia got the flu and croup last week. It was a confirmed case of the flu (thanks to her uncle), but what sent us to the hospital was the croup. She has had croup before, about a year ago. And actually, because she was just struggling to breathe and not coughing, I didn't realize until we were at the hospital that she had croup. We spent one night in the ER and she had a fever of 104.7 when we got there. She improved very quickly and the following day didn't have a fever at all!

Watching TV while she is sick ;(

Sleeping: She is on a funny cycle where she gets overtired, then sleeps more than she should, and then because she's not as tired as she should be, she refuses a nap and gets over tired again. Probably one day a week (maybe even less) she will refuse to take a nap. But, for the most part, she is napping great and falling asleep quickly. I have learned that I really need to put her in bed earlier in order for her to fall asleep. So, naptime has to be at noon (if its at 12:30, then she might not nap, or may stay awake for an hour before she falls asleep) and likewise, bedtime needs to be at 7. The times we keep her up until 7:30, she will play in her bed and not fall asleep until after 8:30. But, when she is in bed by 7, she will be asleep by 7:15 most of the time.

Going on a hike with daddy and mommy

Right now, she is loving Mickey Mouse Clubhouse, Veggie Tales and Tom & Jerry (the old ones). I definitely limit the amount of screen time she has, but since she was sick we have been a little more lenient than I would like. Now the weather is better and she is healthy, we will be spending more time outside ;)

Georgia is almost potty trained. She wears underwear probably 80% of the time. She still likes to poop in her diaper and will ask almost every day to wear a diaper. I think its because she had a bad experience at McDonalds playplace once in which she pooped in her underwear and we had to go home. So now, she just likes to wear diapers. In case. But, she is #1 potty trained. She does wear diapers during sleeping times. I will probably try to transition her to underwear during her naps.

Walking to the library

One thing she has been doing this month is trying to put her clothes on herself. She can put her underwear on, and can put on her pants and shoes. Shirts are very difficult and she hasn't attempted to put those on yet. She has also gotten herself undressed, which is quite funny to find after she is in bed and you go into her room and see an almost-naked Georgia laying in bed.

She just LOVES mommy's shoes

Georgia-isms

I thought I should keep track of some of the funny things that Georgia says (and not usually on purpose!)

She calls the moon, "boon".

Trying to say ok, she says, "OOOOOH-Tay!"
This is especially funny when she is giving a treat to an animal and keeps yelling louder and louder, with no success. The poor animals can't translate Georgia.

One that she now says correctly is ice cream, which she used to call "gak-guah"

I asked her the other day how old I was. She said 5. The very next day, Dave was talking to her about how old he was. He tried to get her to say "thirty" and because of the difficult "th" sound, it sounds like "forty" when she says it. So, I am 5 and Dave is 40!

She often says, "No like it" when she doesn't want to eat or try something

A cute little phrase that she picked up (probably from me) is, "sounds good?" She will add it on the end of a sentence  Today it was, "mama, watch Veggies Tales and eat lunch. Sounds good?" And I had to break that little heart of hers because we had no time to watch TV.... it was lunch & naptime!

Georgia had a little band-aid on her finger today. After her nap, she took it off and was carrying it around the house. I told her to throw it away because we only use them once and they get dirty. She looked at it and said, "No. Clean!" and then refused to throw it away.


The way she says water is "wah-wee" and milk is "neek"

Last week we were leaving the grocery store when a homeless man came up to us and asked for change. As I reached for my purse, Georgia kept saying, "mama! Santa Clause!" The man thankfully just laughed it off and told Georgia, "Now, you be a good girl for your mama!" Whew. That was just a little awkward.

noise?

I don't know if I will continue with the monthly updates on Georgia. I will continue to update about her, but would love to do more updates about what she is doing and saying, as opposed to the milestones she is meeting.

Lately, she has been asking about noises that she hears. She will cock her head to one side and stand quietly for a minute and then ask, "Noise?". I guess its one of those things that she is just starting to comprehend and investigate. So far a few of the noises we have heard are cars driving by, a cricket in the backyard, and horns honking. I have to admit the cricket scared her and she refused to go back outside. Bless her.

After London....

We have now been living in the US for a little less than three months.
I thought it might be interesting to mention some of the things that we find odd now that we live in the US.

The first one I was going to talk about was the grocery store. The average grocery store here is maybe 5 or 6 times bigger the size of the average grocery store in the UK. Maybe even more like 10 or 11 times the size. So in the beginning, it was overwhelming to go to the store. It was just so big. There were so many things, and so many options. Things that we hadn't seen in two years, and new things. Reading labels is more difficult here - they "sneak" gluten into things. There aren't strict requirements for labeling here, so under the allergy information, they don't have to put "contains gluten" like they do in the UK. And products here contain so much junk! Seriously.... reading labels here is a pain. And time consuming.

From Tescos, a grocery store in the UK: Would you like some sardines with your desserts?

Besides the stores being huge, they are also empty (of people). Shopping at grocery stores in the UK at pretty much any day or any time were like being at a Black Friday Sale. Seriously. Running into people with your cart, waiting in long "cues" for checking out, hoping that whatever you were planning on getting at the store was still there. I once went to the store in the evening and they didn't have any chicken. At all. Like rows and rows of bare shelves. I have yet to be at a store in the US when they run out of whatever you wanted to buy. In fact, I was so surprised when I went shopping right at Thanksgiving time and was able to get everything on my list and even better - it was all on sale!

Living in the UK has expanded my dinner ideas. I now get frustrated at regular grocery stores trying to find things like risotto rice (and please not just a box where you add water and microwave for 2.5 minutes), gluten-free products and Indian foods.

One thing that our family has enjoyed very much has been the weather. I am probably the first to admit it! I love the sun and warmth, and moving back to So Cal in October was just perfect. I have felt bad posting picture of us enjoying the weather (because we have a lot of friends who are not blessed with living in such a great climate), but that is one wonderful thing about living here.

The weather in So Cal (even though its the winter right now) is about as nice as our summer in London. Actually, maybe nicer - there is a ton more sun, but not as much rain. And in fairness, we had a few nice days in London. But, Georgia is accustomed to the cool weather. We are the odd ones out when we go to the park. Georgia will be in short sleeves, or maybe long sleeves and hardly ever a jacket. The people who are from So Cal will be wearing winter jackets and hats. No joke. This isn't a problem for us until it starts getting hot in June and July, and then Georgia won't know what to do with herself!

I am loosing my walking legs. We have gotten so used to driving everywhere here - the nearest grocery store is a mile away. It is just easy to hop in the car and drive, as opposed to walking. We do live in a "walkable" area - the library and park are both two blocks away.

Found it!

Today I had to return overdue books to the library. Ugh. I'm totally blaming it on the library's computer system that didn't tell me the books were overdue until they were 3 days late.  (and they didn't even send me the "warning you have books due in a couple days email")

Anyways, while Georgia was eating breakfast, I was trying to collect the books and get everything organized so we could get out the door. I could NOT find one book. I looked twice in Georgia's bookshelf. I looked in our bookshelf and in her toy bins around the house, trying to find it.

I hadn't seen it in a couple days. I know it was a book Georgia had enjoyed, so I asked her about it. She said she didn't know. She finished eating and I got her out of her chair. I started getting dressed and finished getting everything together.  All of a sudden she comes out of her room saying, "Fount it!" Sure enough it was the correct book. I still don't know where it was, but I am just amazed that she understood the title of the book I was looking for, and knew where it was (or remembered what it looked like!)

There's a lot going on in this little fashionista's brain!

2-years old!

Georgia's first wedding

This is obviously quite late. Georgia has been two for over a week now. The reason I am hesitating to post this is that I want to do a "photo-shoot" with her, and haven't gotten to that yet. Oh well! I will try to write about her being two and when I get to taking pictures, I will post them.

She loves being like mommy

Height: 36.5 inches
Weight: 30 pounds
Shoes: 8

Helping mommy make some cookies - probably eating more marshmallows than we used in the cookies 

Speaking: It is amazing the transformation that has happened over the last couple months. Georgia has always had a high vocabulary, but just recently has started putting words together to make sentences. Now, most of the time she speaks in 3+ word sentences. She learns words so quickly, some new ones are "snowman" and "Christmas trees" and "playground", "jamies" and so on. I am guessing she has a vocabulary of 500+ words.

Georgia and her friend Sadie walking in the Christmas "stroll"

Sleeping: Her sleeping still isn't where I want it to be. She wakes up once a night, I think mostly because her diaper is soaking wet. She sleeps from 8pm to 7 or 8am, and then wakes up once from 4:30-6:30 and will go back to sleep after that. Her naps have been a struggle, with her sleeping only 1.5 hours most days - and taking up to an hour to fall asleep.

playing in the rain

Loves: Mickey Mouse Clubhouse, stuffed animals, playing pretend, naked time, coloring and painting, nail polish, McDonalds playplace, whatever she can do to be like mommy (pushing a shopping cart around, putting on makeup, nail polish and wearing my shoes)

Hates: bugs, spiders, bees 

She LOVES the beach and asks that we go almost every day

Breakfast the day of her birthday - notice her Mickey Mouse balloon ;)

Daddy come back!

I have not been very good about updating my blog.... I'm going to try to do more often, shorter posts, especially now that Georgia is talking a lot more! She sure says some cute things that I'd like to remember.

Georgia snuggling with Dave just a couple minutes after she woke up from a nap.

Dave left for a short business trip on Sunday. He was just driving an hour away or so, and came back today (Tuesday). We told Georgia that he was leaving during lunch, a half an hour or so before he left. The first thing she said, (looking straight at Dave), was, "Daddy, come back!" And of course he reassured her that he would be coming back. She repeated it maybe 10 times throughout that half hour, and gave him a kiss goodbye before he left ;)

She just loves her daddy so much!