Sydney at 20 months...Feb 2012

So I have decided that I should probably stop referring to my daughter's age in months. Non-toddler parents and non-parents just look at me like I am crazy! But I cannot say 1 (too much of a maturity difference) and 1 1/2 doesn't quite give her the same justice. So I have decided that she is "almost 2". And that, my dear friends, has begun to give me a slight anxiety attack. She is just growing so fast!!! She has so many new interests and developing interests that she is really coming into her own little personality. Some of this has been challenging, but not all of it. Most of it has made me incredibly proud to call her my little angel.

I am so happy that she is starting to warm up to the whole picture thing so now if she just knows she is being too cute, she will say picture! picture! and then she will say cheeeeeesssseeee!!!

I got her these glasses (Dora) so that she would kinda leave mine alone. It took her awhile to warm up to them, but we are getting there ha ha. She knows she is slick though. ha ha

I guess this is also the age that the want to be undressed starts to occur? I haven't looked up the information about this one, but this is how it plays out in this house...

And that brings us to our favorite... Reading! First, I have a slight bad mommy confession. Sydney gets to watch a lot of TV. I still don't know if it's considered a LOT of TV, but she has some distinct favorites that get played a lot more than I initially thought that I would let her watch. Dora, Elmo, Diego, Wonder Pets, Backyardigans, Mickey Mouse Clubhouse. She loves these guys. I used to fight back against the constant want for something to be on the TV, even on the weeknights. But after 8-9 hours of stimulation at daycare, I have started to give myself a break on this one. It helps us mellow out after long hard days at our respective daytime locations. It allows dinner to get made, dishes to get done, cleaning to be taken care of. And when it comes down to it, a happy mommy=a happy wife=a happy daughter (me to my dad and sydney to us)=a happy husband=a happy papa (my dad). And I am feeling like we really have a great system in place. It just works. So sue me if Sydney watches TV more than the doctor or psychologist recommended time. Obviously I am digressing from my initial start. What I meant to transition to is that we piggy back on this with balance. Sydney love certain shows, but she also loves reading. So we have tons of books around. Every night concludes with a book before bedtime. Sometimes we pause our tv watching for a book. Sometimes we read in the car. But the point is that this girl LOVES books. So much like her mama, I must admit. My first major injury was because of a book. Such a nerdy story right here...I was stacking my books nicely and organized on our front brick steps and I fell forward, somersaulted, and busted the back of my head opened. So it's in Sydney blood to be a reader. God bless her. She also loves hockey, she was so made for this family! So last night we combined both of our favorite pleasures and this was the result at the end of the night...

We also are starting to spend more time outside with the weather getting so nice. And that is great too. The other night it was about 75 when we got home so we went for walks and ran around the yard. And then she did the same when Daddy got home. And then she got to go for a walk around the block with Papa. This is helping us instill the good behavior while walking as well. The first walk she went on with Papa wasn't as smooth sailing. But the other night she made it all the way around without fighting against holding hands or trying to walk into someone's yard. That long walk gave Mommy a chance to get dinner together. It was amazing. Gotta love this girl!!!