19 Months

And once again, poor Bekah's monthly post is about one week late (pic was two days late, not as bad, right?). I am going to do my best to remember what it is that she did last month, and not last week! : )

Here she is sporting her new haircut for the wedding. Daddy likes to make fun of her by calling her "Flo"

( for Florence Henderson : ) 

At least she was looking at the camera here, but getting her to that growth chart, as always,

required that I ask her where the bumblebee is!

Best shot I could get of her in front of it, look how Close she is to being 3 feet!

Random facts on Bekah this month include:

- how much she loves music class! We started back up at Prelude this season and she talks about Ana ( the teacher) every day, often meaning that we "get" to listen to the CD from that music class pretty much every time we drive in the car. (Probably explains why I had no clue what songs they were playing at the wedding the other night!)

- Our allergies were quite the issue last month

- with an epipen on hand ( a friend had hers with her at the zoo) and a daddy doctor around, mommy finally worked up the courage to give her peanut butter! she survived, though did not like it as much as she should!

- When she picks up a book and hands it to me, my first reaction is to start reading it to her, but lately, she simply will tell me a "main idea" of the story, then move on to the next book. It's so cute! It's like a mini retelling! For example, she will hand me Three Little Kittens and say, "hush!" just like the mommy says at the end of the book.

- I love seeing her happy and I have noticed that she has lots of body language to suggest this besides smiling. She will walk on her tippy toes, she will pull her arms out behind her like she is about to take off flying and the cutest thing to me, when she finishes something like a puzzle, she will cross her arms over her chest or tummy and smile, as if to say, "there!" Teehee!

- She hasn't been speaking in sentences, but she still tells me stories. Like on the way home, if it is getting close to dinner time, she will say, "home. . . . eat . . . . pasta . . .." or "home . . . . bath . . . daddy . . . book . . .nightnight . . ." It's so awesome and I love hearing her thoughts!

Last month, I had mentioned her love of Dr. Seuss and most other books, but a change in this month is her dedication to her magazines! Don't worry, she isn't into US weekly or anything juicy like that, she tends to gravitate towards those Pottery Barn Kids magazine and ESPECIALLY her American Girls Doll mag! It's so fun because I don't have to go out and get her anything new and IT'S FREE! Really, all moms of girls should sign up for the American Girls Catalogue, she could look at it for hours. Hope I am not promoting the online shopper in her!

Another great part of the fall has been how involved we are in our wonderful neighborhood playgroup! We love all the babies and mommies in our playgroup, the are soo supportive, kind and fun! We see them about 3 times aw week, whether we are at storytime, the children's museum or the weekly Friday playgroup.

Here is Bekah with her friend Lina, who just happened to have another outfit on from the same line as Bekah's! The moment was begging for a picture!

That particular playdate was big on cute outfits, here is Bekah's sweet friend, Jack, aka Maverick, or Iceman maybe?? We joked that the drool on the collar of his shirt was really sweat from the volleyball game : ).

This is one of my favorite kid pictures, I mean, how much cuter and blissfully happy can you get? And this is exactly how Bekah's friend Colt is when he is around his friends! What a fun guy! We sure are thankful for these friends!

With Halloween quickly approaching that month, Bekah got her fair share of treat, and now, I have the problem of trying to hide them from her! If we are in the grocery store and she sees a cupcake, the girl goes bananas until she gets it! Meaning, she goes bananas! It's a hard lesson to learn, but you can't have a cupcake cake whenever and wherever, as much as I wish that could be true!

I feel so lucky, Bekah really does see her grandparents at least once a month, and Oct. was not exception! We had to drop Bekah off in SA so that Zack and I could go to Chicago, childless! But more on that in another post : ).

We were pretty busy this month with lots of trips out of town, but we did happen to have one Fall Family Fun Weekend  (that term reminds me of something Danny Tanner would use on Full House : ) ), where we made it out to a pumpkin patch! 

Watching the goats:

When we saw the pony rides, we immediately couldn't help but wonder if we should try it out, and then we got our answer as she pretty much fell out of Zack's arms, reaching for the ponies!

Hmm . . . but maybe the hesitation suggests she changed her mind?

We go for it anyways and as you can tell, Bekah is not having it.

So our ticket price paid for the unique opportunity to run/walk along side of the ponies, YAY! Teehee, Bekah thought it was amazing! Maybe next year she will want to ride the animal that she talks about every day, all that time!

 Then it was time to take the wagon out to the pumpkin patch!

I really do like this hat, and Bekah LOVES this hat, but I wasn't sure how much it matched her outfit that day, so each time I tried to take it off, Bekah got extreamly concerned, so here we go, pumpkin patch pictures with a not so perfect outfit!

"Ill take this one please!"

Going to stuff like this really is so important for kids even as young as Bekah, it makes things come alive for them!

We have pumpkins in books, at stores and on our front porch, but making that authentic experience of being in a field of them sure made it meaningful to her!

It's so much fun to learn about the world though your child's eyes!

I love this pic of Bekah and her daddy. It sure was a relaxing day, knowing we had him to ourselves all day long!

Finally got her to take the hat off:

Looking for more "chairs"

Getting ready to give daddy a big,

Kiss! Her kisses simply melt my heart!

Trying on mommy's glasses, don't blame her, it was bright AND hot out there!

Riding back to the fair. She is such a big girl, wanting to sit on the bench all by herself! 

As I said, it's fun learning about the world from their perspective, but it's also fun to do all those kiddie things again, such as pipe slide like this one! Don't think Zack minded having to accompany her on this!

She is such a Goldilocks always looking for another chair to try out!

This month she has developed a definite shoe fetish because really, if there is a grown up shoe within her reach, it's going on her foot and she is taking it on a strol!

Now, I didn't think this day was too far away, but gosh, still a little soon if you ask me, my girl is wearing high heels! I am sure she has rummaged through my closet sometime during the last few months and tried them on her feet, but for her to WALK in them, successfully? Well, I wasn't expecting that! Here she is, on the runway:

( Once again, notice she is wearing her favorite hat, and please excuse her mismatched jammy outfit, basically, she just wears random cotton separates to sleep in : ) )

One shoe on, starting easy . . .

Feeling ambitious and tries for the 2nd one, purse still in tow:

She swings the momentum to finally stand up, and she is off!

Immediately she realized that "baby steps" was the name of the game,

and she was a natural, on her very first try!

She did so well, that she pulled off a 360, minus a fall! I told Zack we were training her early to do that one race in Central Park where all the contestants run in high heels! You know, the one on Regis and Kelly? Or maybe it just means that she has "tough feet" which is a great quality to have as a ballerina!

This high heel business is can surely suggest  how Bekah has been "sharing her opinion" with us lately which leads to my last point in this post. This month, and maybe a little bit last month, we have explored the idea of "thinking time" ( ie- time out). Thanks to the excellent parenting of my friends and grandmas, I felt like I had heard alot about it before so, when Bekah decided to try to climb up and over the back of the couch (since she had hit that 18 month milestone that some books suggest you to be before introducing such an idea) I went for it!

So to those of you who are interested in hearing what I learned in this month of trying out thinking time, here you go, and for you mommy pros, don't feel bad if you are saying yourself, "I just don't know if I can take anymore of yet another lengthy Jenny post!"

 I am still trying to tweak it, but I will say the things that I learned:

- if it is a safety issue I want her to know that there will be consequences if she does not obey mommy, to keep her safe! So I am mostly focusing on safety issues, to help her understand what "thinking time" even is, so then, later on down the line, I can say the words, "do you want thinking time?" when she is not being obedient and distraction does not work.

- once I picked her up and put her by a wall, i wanted to be able to tell her to just stay, but she doesn't work that way. I ended up having to sort of keep her from getting up, which I felt bad doing, but was told by other mommies that it only takes a few times,  and then they don't get up until you tell them to.

-  i talked to her while she was in there, explained to her what she did wrong, tried to use lots of important vocabulary words/phrases like, "climbing", "thinking time," "mommy is sad with you."

- after i talked with her, i asked her to say sorry, i gave her a hug and then told her i loved her.

- well, would you know that it took me doing that 4 times in a row before she "chose" not to climb on the couch again? each time it was over, she would march straight  back to the couch, start to climb, look at me, smile and then do it again!!! i couldn't believe it! i would tell her, "no, or you will have thinking time," and sure enough, she would do just that. it was a game to her! but after 4 times, i guess she got the point and did not go back willingly.

-  a few days later, she did the same thing, i put her in thinking time and afterwards, she said the last thing that a mommy wants to hear, she said . . . MORE???? with a big smile on her face! I was dumbfounded by that reaction! Sweet friends told me that maybe she enjoyed the moment that thinking time gave her, that the break was nice, but goodness, I can't have her LOVING it, you know??

- so my latest plan has been, to sort of isolate her more. I was told that maybe  I needed thinking time to be a moment where she couldn't see me. It didn't feel right for me to put her up in her room, so I sort of blocked off this one spot in our study that I could put her in where she would not be able to see me. So far, so good and she has not repeated a thinking time after going there.

- I am feeling better about the new location and I am hopeful that this new way could be more effective. 

All of this has taught me a few truths about disciplining:

- you have to pray about it

- it really is different for each child

- you are constantly tweaking it as they understand more and can do more

- talking about it to other mommies is so valuable to me

- god puts in humor at times you least expect it, ( such as the time that she said so innocently, "more??") because really, that was a very funny thing, just not at the time!

Happy 19 months Bekah! I love you more than I could ever express in words, that is why I am always hugging you and kissing you!  Did you know that come 11pm or so, after you have been sleeping for a few hours, I always start to miss you? That is why I never go to bed without walking into your nursery to say good night to you first! That is when I put my hand on your back and say a little prayer of gratitude that I have you and ask God to help me be a good mommy to you , take care of you and protect you! Like I always say, spending my days with you is such a blessing that I will always be grateful for!