As any somewhat regular readers may have noticed, we've not been great at updating this past month. We're now well past 18 months (nearly halfway to 19) and I'm just finally posting an update. Beyond normal life stuff, I've been a bit tired because we're expecting Baby 2.Ov in early February! The really tired phase passed a few weeks ago and I've since played catch up on other life stuff. Like cleaning the house. Or actually feeling like I'm spending quality time with my 18 month old. I didn't feel nauseous this time (although it was never bad with Maude) but I do feel like I felt much more tired this time around. And it didn't kick in until about 10 weeks and lasted until about 14. Strange, but so glad that was the worst of it and even happier I'm now through it.
You may remember Maude's due date was Super Bowl Sunday 2011. She was indeed born on her due date, Super Bowl Sunday. If you can believe it, we're due again on Super Bowl Sunday (it's February 3rd this year. I never ever thought that much of the Super Bowl, but it has somehow become an important event in our house. I very seriously doubt this baby will be as timely as our Maude, but it sure makes for some laughs right now. After being 9 months pregnant with Maude and getting all the emails, calls, texts, facebook posts asking if I'd had her yet (and not even at my due date yet), I swore I would never ever share my due date again. Well, having such a similar due date just begs to be shared - we couldn't resist.
I'm not sure if Maude has become more interested in babies since I found out I was pregnant or if I just notice it more, but this girl loves her some babies. She can spot a baby (and a dog) from 5 miles away and points and hollers out "BABY!" when she sees one. I can only hope her fascination continues for the next 5-6 months and she adores her little sibling.
In Maude news, I have to say, this is seriously the most fun age there is. I don't know how she could be any more fun, funny, surprising, curious, quick-witted, (have I mentioned fun?), and silly as she is at this age. I think Mike mentioned her vocabulary in his last post. For all of you wondering why we're counting how many words she knows, we started because Mike's mom shared that at 18 months, he knew 150 words. We were curious to see how many Maude knew. On her 18 month birthday, she crossed the 250 mark and is now well over 320. It's amazing and near bizarre to hear some of the words she picks up on. She also has a lot of 2-4 word phrases down and it's great to be able to communicate with her now.
Mike and Maude spend their days playing in the backyard (Maude adores her water table), going to the many parks in our area, biking nearly everywhere, and having play dates with other kids her age. When home, Maude could spend hours upon hours reading books and playing with her legos. I got her out of her crib on Sunday morning and she and I proceeded to sit in her room and read for over an hour while Mike made us breakfast. I know she would have kept going all morning had I let her. And if we ever need to get anything done, we just drag out her legos and there goes another hour with her working on putting something together or finding all the animals and making their noises. I've concluded our daughter could live her life happy with books, legos, and her water table.
Below are quite a few photos - I'll let them speak for themselves as a recap of the last month.
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| We went on a picnic a few Sundays ago. Maude's trusty ball came with us and provided a whole lot of entertainment. |
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| Could this be any funnier? We were at a friend's house and after Maude and her buddy Joseph got super muddy in the backyard, we bathed them both and after getting her diaper on, Maude went to their stairs and struck this pose. She stayed like this for at least a full minute, maybe longer. |
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| One one of her many playdates. This was with her buddy Quentin. She's so flirting with him! |
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| We headed down to my hometown for my mom's 60th and my hometown's Sauerkraut Days celebration. Maude enjoyed this little train ride. We told her to hold on and she took it quite seriously. |
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| Testing out her headphones. Our exception to the "no tv" rule is car rides and an upcoming airplane trip to Puerto Rico. We downloaded some Elmo videos for her to watch and rather than annoy all the other passengers, we want her to use headphones. She use to hate them, but she seems to be getting the hang of them now. |
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| PANTS! Maude exclaimed this all day last week as she wore pants for the first time in a very long time. It's been wonderfully cool here and Maude is enjoying the chance to change up her wardrobe. |
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| 18 month photo. Very contemplative. |
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| A bit happier. |
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| Before you think she didn't really care for her 18 month photo shoot, here is one of her laughing her silly head off! |
