At her 18-month checkup, Dolly weighed 21 lbs (about the 9th percentile) and was 31.5 inches tall (about the 45th percentile). She had just started putting words together. (One of her early phrases was "Mommy diaper," which is what she called one of my panty liners. I thought that was pretty funny.)
She's had a language explosion over the last few months. Now she puts together good sentences and amazes me with what she knows and remembers. Sometimes she says things that I don't think we've taught her - like when I said, "Ready?" and she said, "Set, go." She repeats everything. She almost always refers to herself in third person, so there's a lot of "Ever want that," "Ever helping Mommy," etc. She still talks about the new car seat we got months ago for Jim's car - "Ever['s] new car seat Daddy['s] car." I think she's said that about 1,000 times.
She loves running and jumping.
She still loves "big trucks" and is also into the "mail truck."
Hair bands are "bean-beans."
She's officially in the independent phase. She wants to do things by herself - put on her shoes, get into her car seat, turn the lights on/off, pull the wipes out of the container, etc. Makes life hard sometimes.
She used to give me a really hard time about brushing her teeth. So I'd say, "Are you going to let me brush your teeth, or do we need to do it the hard way?" And if she didn't cooperate, I'd sit on her with her arms pinned under me. After I did that a couple of times, she started requesting the "hard way." We'd go upstairs, and I'd say, "Let's brush your teeth," and she'd say, "Hard way." She's gotten much better.
Speaking of Ever's teeth, they got really discolored. I noticed some black on a couple of them, and then it spread to more and more teeth. I procrastinated taking her into the dentist, and then I had to get a referral to a pediatric dentist, which was sort of a nightmare. When I finally got her in to a pediatric dentist, I was so nervous that her teeth were rotting and the dentist was going to call CPS. Turned out it was cosmetic - something about metal attaching to build-up on the teeth or something, with the root cause possibly being iron-fortified formula. The dentist scraped it off, and all is well. I was sooo relieved.
She still takes (requires) her "night-night" (pacifier) for bedtime. I'd really like to break her of it, but that's going to be tough.
Once Jim was driving home from church with Dolly and wanted to make sure she wasn't falling asleep. He said, "If you're awake, say, 'I'm here, Daddy.'" Dolly did as commanded. Jim decided it was the sweetest thing, so he trained her to say it. Now he just asks, "Will you say something special for me, Dolly?" And she says in her little voice, "I'm here, Daddy." It really is so sweet.
She loves her books. She has parts of them memorized, and I love making her fill in the blanks as I read. She went through a phase when she was OBSESSED with the "pigeon books" (the Mo Willems books the Rob and Annas gave her). The first thing she'd say in the morning when I went to get her was, "Pigeon book." She made us read them all the time, and she carried them around the house.
She was super into wearing my shoes for a while, especially my new red heels. She seems to have outgrown that phase.
She enjoyed the baby pool we got from the Davises a couple times this summer. I had a dream that she would play for an hour while I prepared dinner and watched her through the kitchen window. Alas - she's really only happy if someone else is in there with her.
One Saturday I had to get some work done, so Jim set up the pools. We have a tiny pink pool in addition to the blue one pictured above. She designated the tiny pink pool "Daddy's pool" and made him stay in that one. She basically bossed him around for three hours. It was not his favorite day.
She loves cookies more than anything in the world and asks for them all the time. (We've got problems. She's a Hastings.) Despite her love of sweets, she has become quite a good eater. She eats some fruits (raspberries are a favorite) and vegetables and can put away a decent amount of food for a tiny person. She'll eat an entire small avocado in one sitting. I read part of a book about feeding toddlers that says not to expect them to sit at a meal for more than 10 minutes; they can get what they need in that time. Dolly's meals last at least a half an hour and sometimes close to an hour. It's a little painful. She's so slow, but she really knows how to savor her food. She hasn't drunk milk (other than in her cereal) since we put away her bottles.
She loves helping.
She won't let me unload the dishwasher without her. She's actually really good. I let her pull out plates, bowls, and everything, and she hasn't dropped anything yet.
I made the horrible mistake of going to the DMV to renew my license this month without making an appointment. To pass the time, Dolly and I had a photo shoot while we waited in line. She came up with some neat new poses:
We still find her incredibly wonderful and tell her so constantly.
