Felicity At 18 Months

Felicity is 18 months old today!
Yes. Time flies. This morning I got the comment at daycare from another parent -  "How is she already in the toddler room? I thought you were just pregnant?". I told her I felt the same way.

Felicity grows and changes every day. She gives the best kisses, and pretty good hugs too. And she likes to do these things.

Her vocabulary is still pretty limited, but she is in that phase where she thinks we can understand much more she is staying then we actually can, so lots and lots of trying new words. Her "for sure" words are Mom/Mommy, Dad/Daddy, Dog, Water, More, Owie, Hi, and Bye. She can say Yes (Yeah) if you remind her to use it, but much prefers to just break into a big toothy smile and giggles when the answer is yes. She shakes her head vigorously for no.

Felicity is very into self care and cleaning. She loves to help find her socks in the morning, and tries to get close on and off. She can put her own hat on and occasionally manages to get a boot on. She likes to pick things up, and wipe things off. Sometimes she dumps something out just to get to wipe it up. She loves being helpful. I love how when she is eager to do something (like leave the bedroom, go downstairs, leave the house etc), you can stop her and tell her what needs to be done first, and she tends to calm down and do it or try to help with it. (Example: Its in the morning and she is eager to go across to Ben's room, and maybe is whining or pounding on the door. I can say "Felicity, we need to get socks for Ben" and she will come back around and start looking for socks. Or, "Felicity, I need to put pants on me? Where are my pants" and she will come look at what I am wearing and maybe go to the laundry basket. Its a lot of fun.

Felicity loves to read books. Her favorite things are anything with dogs in them, or flaps, or objects to open. Did you know "Going on a Bear Hunt" has a dog on every page? Felicity does. She also has "Spot the Puppy" and a lot of Hello! Magazines that she loves. She likes adults reading her books, but she also loves just sitting on her own, "reading" (babbling) as she turns pages.

At daycare, she has been in the toddler room for about two months. She seems to love being there. She arrives home entirely exhausted, and has therefore been going to bed at 6pm on days she was at daycare. On days she stays home or with grandma she naps more and can stay up later. She is sleeping through the night most of the time, and I just gave her a pillow and blanket, though she isn't really using them yet.

Felicity likes to play dolls, play with stickers, and draw or color. She likes to take the helmet's off Ben's lego guys and put them back on. She has been doing A LOT of puzzles, with some help, but she gets better every day. She uses "owie" to mean help, so if a piece won't fit she says "owie!" which is both adorable and confusing at times. She likes to be outside. She likes walking in snow, or on grass. She has an opinion about what shoes she wears, and what jacket, but the opinion changes.

When Felicity is really excited, she does this hilarious little rapid leg motion that we now call "crazy legs", and its sort of a nickname for her. We also call her Fliss, Baby Girl, Felicity Jane, and sister. Mostly its Felicity though. I think my mom calls her Little Bits.

I am still absolutely in love with her. More every day, if that is even possible.

First Hockey Game

On Friday night we took Ben to his first Hockey game, or, at least he first one he has any chance of remembering at all.

He did NOT want to go. He wanted to throw a big fit and stay home. But, we persisted. We wanted it to be HIS night. He made that a bit hard because he was asleep for the beginning of it, and very grumpy, but eventually he caught on. We took him to Perkin's for dinner so he could get breakfast food, which he loved. Then onto the hockey game. He was mesmerized as soon as we walked in, loved going through the skywalk, loved the atmosphere, loved the bleacher seating. There was a lot of empty space and he could run around.

When the game started, he watched pretty closely for the first 8 minutes or so of play, even craning his neck to see around other people. He liked the checking. Then he started to get restless and we moved to a less crowded section so he could move around more. He loved when UMD scored goals. We were really not sure how much he was following, but shortly after a goal got disallowed I was explaining how to read the scoreboard and he caught the difference ("2? I thought we scored 3 goals!"). We stayed until the end of the 2nd period, he was looking more and more tired and less and less interested. As we were leaving he said "Maybe you can watch the rest of the game on TV while I am in bed and when it is over come up and tell me if we won" and " maybe some time after my next birthday, after my five birthday, we can come back here and I can play hockey". It was adorable that he was so interested!

Really, the biggest and best outcome of the night was that we showed him it can be fun to root for a a good team! The atmosphere- the band playing, people screaming, jumping up and down, totally got him hooked. Maybe eventually we can translate to rooting for good guys in movies and fiction....