Dear Siena – 19 Months

Dear Siena,

You continue to amaze and entertain us as you learn more and more. Your personality is shining and you have a pretty great sense of humor. It’s becoming increasingly obvious that you listen to everything we say and watch everything we do, because you’re able to imitate it all (including saying “dammit” which apparently I say too often – I guess it could be worse!).

This month you started putting sentences together, starting with proudly exclaiming “I did it!” when you put two blocks together, just after you turned 18 months. It continued with always asking where someone went after they leave, such as “Where dada go?” or “Is he?” while putting both your hands up, palms facing upward in the traditional expression for confusion. You have cute little mannerisms like saying “boom” every time you fall or something falls on the ground and saying “wow” when you’re surprised.  You point across the street at my friend Shahara’s house and say “Jack’s house” and ask about people when they are gone “Where papa go?” (your new nickname for your Grandpa Woyski who came to visit this month). When I come home you shout “Mama home!!!” and when your dad opens the garage door (he works from home in the garage) you screech “Dada home!”

You’re a copy-cat and will say any word or phrase we do, including “Happy Birthday Grandma” for your Grandma Christy on her birthday. On Easter, Grandma Christy pointed to Bob, who has a grey beard, and told you his name and now you call all men with grey beards, Bob, including strangers, which is pretty funny!

When we drive somewhere you say “we’re here!” when we get there and “we’re home” when we get home. You learned your first color – purple – and are working on some others, but aren’t consistent. You still love when your dad sings and plays the ukulele to you before bed and now ask him to play by grabbing his ukulele and saying “song.” I’ve also heard you singing along with him, particularly the chorus of one of those songs, singing “someeeedayyy.” It melts my heart!

You’re still a picky eater and your first molars are coming in which doesn’t help either (some meals you barely eat anything and others I can’t believe how much you eat!). Recently your favorite foods are popcorn, hummus, cantaloupe (which sounds like “cat poop” when you say it), and crackers. You still love eggs, greek yogurt, pretty much all fruit, cheese, butternut squash, and sweet potatoes, and for some reason have stopped liking peanut butter and guacamole. You finally will eat pasta when we have it (only if its plan with butter – I think you don’t like tomato sauce) and even ate a few bites of pizza, but generally you don’t like to try new foods, even if they are delicious things like pizza, mac and cheese and ice cream. In fact, on Easter we put berries in your eggs instead of candy because you wouldn’t eat candy even if we wanted you to!

You’re really into babies right now. Every time we meet up with Allison and her sons, you want to be lifted put to peer in at baby Lincoln, who was born in February. We went to the zoo for the first time and you were more interested in the babies in the strollers than the animals (though you were much more into the animals than when I took you to the Safari Park several months ago). You still love to play with your little stroller and baby doll and now like to practice changing her diaper with one of your own diapers, wrap her up in a blanket or put your shoes on her. Your other favorite things are bubbles, your play kitchen (which now has a ton of new cups and play food thanks to your grandparents), your wood flowers building set,  and reading the “Boo Boo Book” which is a cute little book that has fake bandaids that you put on the animals in the story who hurt themselves. Generally, you’re able to focus and listen to the stories in books longer than you were before (you used to shut the book every time I would read and only wanted to look at picture/vocabulary books) which is nice.

In last month’s recap I mentioned that you were in a perfect phase where you were very amenable. That changed shortly after and you have started to show a bit of the toddler tantrums that we knew were coming. You are more likely to blatantly ignore us or use emotions/tears to get us to do something you want. The hitting of other kids has gotten a lot better though. You are pretty good at sharing with other kids unless its’ something you own – for example we brought your stroller over to Jack’s house and you had a melt down when he wanted to play with it, even though you were just sharing his toys with him. I’ve learned not to bring your toys to other places (including the park) for this reason.

You had your first swim lessons this month! Your dad took you to the YMCA for swim lessons on Saturday mornings while I was doing my long run. You really enjoyed it! I got to take you to one of the classes too which was fun. I also took you to the pool and the splash pad a few times and you just seem to love the water. You’re not close to actually swimming yet, but you’re getting more comfortable in the water. 

We wrapped up our weekly gym classes this month – it makes me sad because you love it so much! You really love hanging on the bars and doing (assisted) flips over the bar or while being held. You’ve started to go up and down steps without holding on and you can climb up the big kid ladder at the park (photo here) now, which is kind of scary! You also think you’re much stronger than you are – for some reason you hate when we lay down on the floor and every time we do, you come over to us and try to pull us up,  grabbing our heads and shouting “Up! Up! Up!” until we get up.

You now go to our friends house on Tuesday mornings for about 4 hours to play with your friend Emi while their nanny takes care of both of you. This gives me time to work and run and catch up on things while you get to spend time with your friend! You really seem to love it and even talk about Emi and the nanny and ask to go back!

We are definitely in a good groove and we have so much fun together! I love being your mom and I’m so thankful that I get to spend so much time with you. I love you!
Love,

Mommy