20 Months (plus a week)

Miss Kalaya gets more grown up and independent every day. She keeps changing and I'm amazed how many new words and sentences come out of her mouth. I have lost track of all the new words she has learned, because there are so many new ones each day. We're definitely at the point where she'll repeat back almost any word you ask of her.

One new word that we tried SO HARD not to teach her (and didn't) has finally been learned. :::sigh::: And with that words comes a more independent attitude. You guessed it, the word is no.

It's very frustrating for us, because we have avoided using the word her entire life. And then, one week of living with my dad.....and she's saying it. I asked and asked him not to say it around her, to her, etc and he thought I was crazy. Next thing you know, she's saying it all the time. Grrr.... (incase you're wondering, we didn't tell her not to do things, we just had a different sound for no and for redirection. It's hard to say over a blog, but we would say 'ah ah ah, we don't do that' or something similar)

We've tried different approaches to handling it. For extreme nos, such as saying it after being asked to or not to do something, there have been timeouts. And believe me, she knows that it's not nice to say no to someone asking you to do something. More recently though, we've switched to just ignoring it. She reacted a lot more negatively when she got a reaction from us. So, we're focusing on praise and not giving the opportunity to answer no. And when she does, we mostly ignore it and act as though she didn't say it. As she gets older, we'll get more specific. The nice thing is that she really seems to be saying it, just because she can. It's very funny sometimes, especially when she's telling the dogs no when they're doing something they're not supposed to. I'm okay with that one. : )

It's such a minor thing now, because she's learned so many other nice words. She's saying love you, please and thank you, all of which warm my heart every time. She says them in the sweetest ways at the sweetest times. She will roll over in the morning, kiss me to wake me up and say nurse? mama? pease? She says other things that crack us up. A couple of days ago, I opened her diaper and said, "Did you go poop?" and she answered, "I poop" which was hilarious. And hey, it's one step closer to potty training! Another favorite new word is 'yuck' because she always says it when we're eating some kind of dessert. Well trained! (and no, we're not going to outlaw sweets her whole life. We know that we'll just make them taboo and make her want them more. But, we're going to avoid them as long as we can....)

Her favorite thing to do during the day is play with the 3 crazy dogs at our house. Yup, THREE! My parents' dog, our dog and my brother's dog. And yes, they're all dachshunds! They're all really good with her and gentle and play so well with her and each other. She throws the tennis balls all over the place (she's got a heck of an arm for 20 months!) and they chase it and she laughs and laughs. She is very insistent on their walk every day. About 3:30 every day, she starts dragging their leashes around, talking about coats and shoes and asking where Oma is so we can go. She can say all their names and loves the 'doggies'.

She plays so independently so well, it just amazes me. Of course, our playroom full of Christmas presents may be a big help. She LOVES to play with all her babies and stuffed animals. She puts them in the Bumbo and feeds them and gives them cups. She puts them 'nigh nigh' over and over again. She cooks in her kitchen and shops with her grocery cart. One of her favorite games is to take her shopping cart to the pantry and kitchen drawers and fill it up. Poor Oma and Grandpa, they're so tolerant of all the things around their house! Another thing she likes is to play with recyclables. (is that a word?) My mom has a large bag with (washed) plastic containers and cardboard stuff for her 'invention center' in her kindergarten class and Kalaya loves to play with those too.

Another favorite activity that she wants to do over and over is look at pictures of people she knows and loves. We look at mommy, daddy, auntie, unkah, gampa, oma, gamma, alla (her cousin), lena (her best friend), mara (another cousin) and emmm (another cousin) over and over again.

Eating is so different from even a couple of months ago! I had decided I had a picky eater, even though I had done everything 'right' to avoid that situation. (nothing like better than becoming a parent to find out you know nothing!!) She is eating so many foods now and her tastes are expanding. She eats anything dairy, any kind of grain, lots of vegetables and some fruits. She does well with beans and rice. She is not a big meat eater. I've tried different forms, but it usually has to be a puree hidden in something else. I am a BIG fan of Deceptively Delicious, not because I think you should always make sure your kids like the food they eat, but because it's a great way to always add nutrition to your kids' meals. I've frozen veggies, meats and fruits in muffin tin and ice cube sizes, so I can always add more nutrition or food groups to a meal. For example, if I know we're going out to dinner at a place (like Red Robin) where we can get her something with a sauce (aka spaghetti or mac and cheese) I bring a couple of 'food cubes' to mix in, such as pureed carrot for the marinara sauce or pureed squash for the cheese sauce. She will eat almost any combination mixed in with cheese, spread on bread or over pasta. I still make a lot of toddler snacks, crackers, etc, which I get either online or in the book Baby Super Food. She likes so many plain things that surprise me: plain yogurt, plain oatmeal, (bit size) shredded wheat, crackers, cottage cheese, water and veggies without anything added to them. She has recently discovered hummus and gobbles it up!