Libby Update: 21 months

Tomorrow Libby will be 21 months, and she seems so big! Even since I last posted, Libby has changed and grown so much. Libby impresses us each day with her vocabulary, her physical abilities, and her developed thought processes.

Lately, and especially since interacting with her incredible friend Josie, Libby has been speaking in phrases, and creating her own unique word combos. She has added to her vocabulary the likes of hot tea, hot bubbles, hot air balloon (hot hot balooyah), applesauce, high five, a very realistic snore sound, nut poosh (milk please), and her latest phrases of nigh-nigh bear, nigh nigh wuvva (lovie), nigh nigh addison, etc. She has picked up on her mama's "hmmmm", and is mimicing more and more words and sounds as she hears them through the day. Maybe most fun is hearing her tone and inflection change as she says various things, she has so much expression and emotion. Even her common response of "yeah" changes drastically from a weepy yeah to confirm that she did get an owie, to an excited yeah or affirmative yeah, straight to "yes" when she's trying to change mama's mind from no. (No, Libby, we're not going to have any cookies now. "yes?")

Physically, Libby continues to impress. She's now almost 34 inches tall and around 30 pounds. She is so incredibly strong. She can climb onto nearly anything, and pulls the weight of her body up, as wells as controlling herself as she lowers down. (you know those excercises where you put your hands on a chair and lower yourself to the ground and back up again to strengthen your triceps, well, we've seen it done) She loves to trot around the house, and never seems to run out of energy. And, as of yesterday, she is climbing out of her crib. Most impressive about this feat, however, is not simply the fact that she got out of her crib, but that she did so silently, with mama and daddy just down the hall listening for her. Though we didn't get the pleasure of watching her climb out (daddy was tempted to ask her to do it again so we could see, but we resisted) we are confident that she did so in a controlled way, carefully lowering/shimmying herself down the outside of the crib because when she landed, she didn't make any sort of a thud. She seems to have her daddy's incredible strength, yet more grace. Which excites daddy tremendously. Mention the words Libby and athlete in a sentence and his face lights up. (Don't take this the wrong way, Libby is still a clumsy toddler. Her fork and cup get bumped to the floor routinely, but see her fall down or pull herself up and she's under great control.)
Additionally, Libby has begun to dress herself. She can pull her pants and socks on, just needing some help getting the back of her pants over her diaper, and can put her shirt over her head and get her arms in. She even surprised mama yesterday - when I got out of the shower Libby was standing in the bathroom wearing one of my camisoles and my glasses. She managed to get the shirt out of my dresser, put it on perfectly (not even backwards!), then finish the presentation with my glasses!

Finally, Libby is a great problem-solver. Daddy and mama disagree- who does Libby get this from? We both want to claim her in this regard, but there is no denying she thinks far ahead, develops plans and executes them. This plays itself out in various ways. Libby retreives and places her stool right where she needs it to turn off lights, help mama in the kitchen, wash her hands, and accomplish anything that seems out of reach. Recently, she was anxious to eat dinner, and seeing mama prepare her plate at the kitchen counter, Libby went downstairs to get her stool, brought it up (with help from mama, who then put the stool in another room, not realizing Libby had a purpose for it), brought it into the kitchen, and climbed up to get to her plate, then take it to the table for eating. This whole series took about 5 minutes, but she wasn't distracted from her plan or purpose, but kept at it despite mama and daddy's interventions (unintentional, of course). She also makes sure everyone buckles their seatbelts in the van, keeps tabs on whether mama's wearing regular or sunglasses and requests a change at the appropriate time, makes sure mama doesn't leave the house without my purse, and much more. Finally, she is engaging in more and more imaginitive play, pretending to cook, pretending to feed dolls and animals, tucking them in, giving them bottles, rocking and singing to them, reading them books, etc. It's so fun and incredible to see her entertain herself with her toys, playing and interacting with toys not as mama does, but as mama interacts with Libby.

Well, the pictures below reflect a fun month of November. We had a great Thanksgiving, we have so much to be thankful for! We were able to celebrate with both Grandmas and Grandpas, as well as aunts and uncles and our best friends Jaime and Josie, who visited just after the holiday. Libby and Josie had so much fun together, as did the mamas. The two of them interacted with one another more than I had anticipated. Josie would say something like, "peek-a-boo dibby!" and Libby would peek and giggle at her. They really enjoyed one another, and I had such a hard time explaining to Libby that "Jose" had gone back to Virginia. Libby continues to ask about "Jose" when she sees something that reminds her of their time together, such as their matching cups, apples, josie's empty seat in the van, mittens, libby's/josie's booster seat, airplanes, the pack n' play, and i'm sure other things i'm now forgetting. The point being, Libby remembers and asks about Josie regularly.

So, enjoy looking through the pictures, and look forward to more coming. We are so thankful to soon to be the owners of a new camera, compliments of early Christmas money. We are excited to be back in business with a functioning flashing camera, and even video! So be prepared to see Libby in a whole new light!