The Bailey Chronicles

Bailey has been invited to three birthday party's this summer.  Last month we celebrated Miss Ava (Bree's oldest daughter) turning 4.  Ava is a great big sister and is so cute and gentle when she plays with Bailey.  We adore her!  Bailey was introduced to a slip and slide at Ava's birthday party and LOVED it!  She is too young to run and flop belly first down the slide like the bigger kids, what she loved about it was the little pool at the end and the sprinkling water.  I should have bought her some sort of water toy for the backyard but I guess I didn't think about it because I take her to the pool to play with her cousins all of the time.  For sure next summer!

and then this last weekend we celebrated Miss Alex turning 2, her mommy Ashley and I were preggos together.  Alex is super tall so she is outgrowing all of her clothes fast, her mommy was kind enough to pass down 4 boxes of clothes and shoes and jackets to Bailey!  Bailey is showing signs of being a girly girl, totally loves shoes and purses and dresses, but mostly shoes.  When Ashley brought over 6 pairs of new shoes to Bailey, she couldn't have been more excited.  She is constantly waiving her new shoes at us and asking for us to help her put them on... did I mention constantly?? LOL.  Alex's party was held at the Little Gym, which is exactly what it sounds like.  They had squishy mats, things to climb on, a host to make them do donkey kicks and tumbles, and songs, hula hoops, bouncy balls, and bubbles.  I am considering signing Bailey up for some classes with Alex some time because she had a wonderful time.

And this month we have Miss Colbi, Bree's youngest daughter, turning 3!!

Yikes I have been such a slacker about my blog lately!  Let's see...

In general Bailey is a happy, funny, outgoing, curious, observational, warm and cuddly little toddler.  Her personality reminds me a lot of John's.  It's easy to make her laugh and she has her little jokes to make others laugh such as sneaking around corners and yelling boo, or putting bubbles all over her face or mine during bubble baths, or trying to feed you her sippy or snacks, etc.  She encourages attention from everyone whether she knows them or not.  A new friend can come over and she will plop down in their lap with in minutes or ask them to pick her up or try to share her paci with them.  At this point sharing doesn't seem to be a problem unless the child is younger than her and then maybe she seems a little threatened, she likes to be the baby as discovered when Jen came to visit with her infant or when her Aunt Candi is watching baby Landon.  She is totally fixated on other children's sippy cups... whatever they are drinking is better than hers even if it is milk which she normally refuses to drink.  She loves reading books with me, or just flipping through the pages to look at the illustrations.  Right now she is really trying to work on language.  She constantly points to random things and asks what it is and studies the answer, so the picture books that are kind of like flash cards are a current favorite of hers.  Yesterday she pointed to a chair and asked "what is this?"  I answered "a chair."  "what is this??"  "a. chair." "is this a chair?!".  YAY Bailey, that finally verified that she's actually listening to the answers and not just randomly pointing.

I have started introducing her to the potty because she comes to tell me when she is poopy and takes her diaper off if it is wet.  She has always hated wet or soiled diapers, and was quick to cry or fuss about them but now she is trying to take matters in to her own hands (no that does not mean she touches it, she hates poopy).  With that being said she loves her potty, so I am not exactly sure how to make her understand that she is supposed to relieve her self in her new toy.  We have a ways to go with coming to terms with this.

She has been jumping, bouncing and leaping all summer.  Yes, their is definitely a difference between the three.  Jumping is cute, she throws her cute little arms in the air and does a tiny little hop.  Bouncing is done on a ball, our bed, her rocking horse, or on us as she chants jump jump jump.  and leaping is a flying leap with her whole body at us so we have to keep on our toes about that one because she doesn't seem to care if we are paying attention or not.  She tried to leap off our patio into the grass (picture a belly flop) and then when she thudded into the grass she seemed shocked at how it wasn't the soft landing that I guess she was expecting.  Lesson learned on that one.

She does have an emotional side where she will run off crying and shut herself into the bathroom, this is usually because she thinks I don't understand what she wants.  I can only imagine how frustrating that is for her, but most of the time I know what she wants but she can't have it like coffee or a Dr. Pepper.  If I talk to her when this happens she cries louder and harder.  I have ignored it and she collects herself and comes back out.  When I tell her no when it comes to her doing something dangerous or not nice she listens, lowers her head, sticks out her bottom lip and freezes by whatever it is that I am telling her not to do.  She stands there for a minute as if deciding if she should do it anyways, but so far she has always made the correct choice.  Some times she tries to laugh... which makes it really hard to keep a straight face, but if I do crack a smile then she precedes to test me.  Typically she does not get emotional about these types of situations so tantrums are not much of an issue, at least for now, and they seem to be short.

She is still learning how to use a fork and spoon.  I think she like Mexican food quite a bit.  Hot sauce, chips, taco meat, guacamole, tortillas, spanish rice are things that she will chow down on that kind of surprise me.  Her favorite three foods at the moment are mac and cheese, fruit snacks, and raspberries, but really she is pretty good about eating most toddler friendly meals.  She's not nearly as picky as I was when I was a kid.      

So that's Bailey at 20 months.