22 Months - Almost

Jeff & I decided that we needed a place to record all of the super cute things that our little Chloe says and does.  Let's face it, I'm not going to scrapbook as much as I did when Kendra was little.  The desire is there, but the time is not.  So, between this private blog where we can record stories and pictures and the YouTube channel we have where Jeff has captured priceless video, I think we are well on our way to recording all those special memories!

Here we are at the 22-month mark (next week), and our little Bean keeps us in stitches all the time with all of her little sayings.  Here are just a few of my favorite things she's been saying and doing lately.

• She loves kitties, but she calls them "meow meows".  She loves to pet the neighbor kitty when we go outside, and she usually saws "awwww hi meow meow!  hi!"
  
• "Zebra" is my favorite word that she says right now... "zzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzeh-bwa!"
  
• She loves The Count and Bert from Sesame Street (strange, I know).  When we ask her to count like The Count, she says, "1, 2, ah ah ah!"
  
• Speaking of counting, she can count to 3 like a pro, but no matter how hard we try to get her to number 4, she'd rather just start over... "1, 2, 3, 1, 2..."
  
• She loves to sing The Wheels On The Bus.  Her favorite parts are "the horn on the bus goes beep beep beep," "the babies on the bus go wah wah wah!," and "the mommies on the bus to shhh shh shh!".  We've also recently added in "the daddies on the bus go tickle tickle tickle," which cracks her all the way up.
  
• We put up the Christmas tree just last week.  Jeff has an old Bambi ornament that connects to the strand of lights and actually rotates with a tiny little Bambi and Thumper on the ice.  Chloe loves that ornament.  She stands there at the tree and says "awwwwwwwww!  bop bop!  awwwwwwwww!"
  
• Our friend Patti has been staying with us for about a week and a half now.  She has had to have eye surgery due to advanced glaucoma, and we've been taking her to her doctors appointments.  Chloe absolutely adores her "Pat Pat" (I suppose it's more like "Pah-Pah" without the T sound).  She will climb up on Pat Pat's lap and read books, sing songs, watch tv... she just loves her.  The other day, Chloe came into the living room, and Patti was asleep on the sofa.  Chloe ran into the kitchen where I was saying "awwwww! Pat Pat nigh-night!"
  
• Last week, when Patti was first here, the gate at the bottom of the stairs had accidentally been left unlatched, but none of us realized that.  Chloe often goes into her room to play, so I wasn't alarmed that she wasn't with us in the living room.  I started hearing a rattling sound at the gate, which I assumed was her wanting to get in so she could go up the stairs.  So, I got up to go check on her only to find her locked in the OTHER side of the gate... HOLDING a big baby doll box that had been in the upstairs bedroom for a Christmas present!  She was SO very proud of herself.  "Baby!  Baby!  Please?  Baby?  Please?"
  
  You could almost see the wheels turning in her mind.  Like she had just discovered gold.  She had gotten through the gate, climbed all the way up the stairs with blankie in hand (I know this because I found her blankie in the upstairs bedroom) and then CARRIED that big baby doll box down the stairs.  We know she didn't throw it because we would've heard that.  I imagine that she probably came down on her tummy sliding down while holding the box.  She worked so hard that I almost felt bad not giving it to her, but we didn't want her to think that going up the stairs was a good idea.
  
• Her favorite TV show right now is Bubble Guppies with Sesame Street as a close second.  She has tons of Bubble Guppie and Sesame Street toys/books, and she gets SO excited when the come on.
  
• This little girl loves to dance.  When we were pregnant, we used to joke that she would be a dancer because every time music came on, she'd start kicking and flipping.  We never knew how true that would be because she has responded to music her entire life.  When she was a colicky baby, sometimes the only thing that would calm her was an Andrea Bocelli CD.  Nowadays, when she hears music whether it's on TV, on the radio, from a toy... wherever... she drops what she's doing to shake her thing.  She even dances to our Vitamix blender in the kitchen when we're making smoothies.
  
• One of her favorite things right now is bath time and bed time.  We fill the tub up with warm water... sometimes up to her shoulders!  She loves to kick, splash, and do the "superman stretch" that her daddy made up.  After a nice LONG bath, she wants powder (this is a must... especially on her feet) and her footie jammies.  Then we read books, sing songs (she particularly loves Jesus Loves me - "Bible toooooooooooooooooo" is the way she asks for it), and she goes to bed in her crib with a ton of stuffed animals and a book.  She still has her "fishes" soother on her crib, so she'll rest and listen to music while she falls asleep.

I know I'm leaving out so much, so our hope is to update this blog/journal with stories as they happen and maybe fill in the blanks with some old stories as we remember.