Tenley Milestones: 21 months

Tenley is 5 days shy of officially reaching her 21 month milestone.  Which also means her birthday is 3 short months away.  Unreal how fast it all goes by.

I have been really bad at documenting our lives in general, but didn't want to miss out on these big milestones we've seen the last few days or past week or two.

She sings along to songs, even if it's just a laaaaalaaaaaaaaaa.  She loves when the radio is on and if she isn't feeling shy she'll sing and dance and rock out with no inhibitions.  She loves watching Dancing with the Stars and tries to mimick the dance moves.  As soon as the song and dance ends, she looks at me right away and signs more. 

More in sign language is also something she's been doing for months now.  I had hopes to teach her more because I used to know so much of that when I was younger as I have a special needs cousin, but I can't remember nearly what I used to.  Sad face.

The other day she saw a silver fish on the bathroom floor and I think it freaked her out a little.  She didn't scream but she definitely jumped back and froze for a sec.  I explained its a bug and distracted her while Dave smooshed it.  Now every time she walks into the bathroom, she goes to the same place looks down, waves and says BAP!  She can't quite say her "g"s yet. :)  Adorbs.  I tell her the bug went bye bye, and then she waves and says bye bye bap!

She started sleeping with a pillow this month.  My parents, aka the Easter bunny, got her a moose pillow pet from Bass Pro that she loves.  The first night or two she could care less, but now she has to have it with her when she sleeps.  We put it on the floor so she can lay on it for her diaper changes and when we're done she picks it up and tries to put it away back in her crib.  She's a big helper these days with putting things away and throwing laundry in the hamper. :)  I hope it lasts but not going to count on it!

She's started saying prayers with us at dinner (and bedtime!).  We hold her hands and close our eyes and she tries to mimic us, but when I peek at her, I see her peeking at us.  Other times we say Tenley put your hands together and pray!  And she does it right away and smiles really big.  When we say Amen! Tenley says MeMen!  And then she signals for more.  I literally melt.  If Dave said the prayer first, then she points to me and wants me to say one.  If Uncle Steve is there, she wants him to say one.

Cheerios are the it thing these days.  She wakes up and as soon as she gets downstairs she runs to the pantry and says Eerio! over and over until we get her a little snack.  If we tell her no, the all-out-fall-on-the-ground-kicking-and-screaming temper tantrum quickly follows. :)  At dinner time all we hear is eerios!  In the car all we hear is eerios!  I tell her she's going to turn into a cheerio!

Along with the full blown temper trantrums we've been experiencing, she's been saying NO! and MINE! All the time.  I keep telling myself this is a phase.  Sometimes I have to chant it. ;)  No one said this parenting stuff was easy!  We're trying to squash this as best as we can but it definitely takes consistency on our part.  When she acts out we tell her "We don't talk like that Tenley, it's not nice; we say hi and we give hugs..." and try to redirect her to something else.  When it works, she leans in for a hug, squints her little eyes and says hi in a little whisper.  If she's being particularly stubborn, we put her in her "thinking chair"... equivalent to a time-out; and let her sit there for a minute so we can try to teach her what behavior is acceptable and what's not.  We explain why she's sitting there and what we expect and I swear sometimes she really gets it.  I ask if she understands, she shakes her head yes, I ask for a hug which she usually gives, and then she gets up and goes on her way.  We've had a lot of success with this method, but of course as is with anything, sometimes she still pushes.  I feel like there's been a lot of improvement though in the past week.  I'd say we've been dealing with the temper tantrums for the past 3-4 weeks.  I know a lot of it stems from her own frustrations and not knowing how to communicate so we try to take that all in stride. 

We've been working on counting with her and I feel like she's picking up it pretty quickly.  She will repeat all of the numbers all the way up to ten which I think is pretty impressive.  Then last night at bed, she didn't want to get changed and was miss wiggle worm.  I was trying to distract her and so I asked her if she wanted to count.  She shook her head yes so I said "one" and she immediately responded, all on her own... "two!"  I swear to you, my jaw hit the floor.  Then this morning as I was getting her dressed, we started counting again and she was holding up her fingers and pointing to them, trying to count on them!  I know she doesn't fully know what one, two, three, etc means, but she definitely gets the idea that you can "count" on your fingers.  Dave asked the sitter about it this morning and she said they've been working on it a lot.  We were also told that Tenley's had a lot more interest in circle time (where they do their learning activities) and actually sits down, listens and pays attention.  Before she didn't really have the attention span for it and would immediately get up and wander around looking for other things to do and toys to play with. 

I absolutely love how perceptive she is.  She's so interactive and when I see things just click for her, its and incredibly great feeling.  Being a mom is seriously the greatest thing ever.