Oh my heavens, you are so much fun! I feel like you have grown so much this month. You are becoming so much more independent and opinionated, always wanting to do everything yourself, from dressing yourself to feeding yourself. I love watching you try to do things and get frustrated. I don't particularly love watching you get frustrated, but I know it's part of the learning process, so I let you work through it and more times than not, you figure it out without my help. The look of pride on your face once you've accomplished a task by yourself is priceless :)
This last month I have started to put you to bed without rocking you to sleep. We'll read books and sing songs but once that's done I put you in your crib, turn the lights down, put on some lullaby music and wait for you to settle yourself down. You don't like for me to leave the room and you'll look over at me every now and then to make sure I'm still there, but for the most part, you do you're own little thing, fixing the blankets, playing with your stuffed animals and you'll eventually lay down and fall asleep. It usually takes about half an hour and you're out for the night :) This helps at nap time, too, because while you're putting yourself to sleep, I can hold and rock Mikey in the rocking chair.
You love to have a friend close to your neck while you go to sleep :)
You've learned how to blow kisses and give butterfly and eskimo kisses. It is too, too cute! You especially love to give Mikey butterfly kisses :) You are getting much better being gentle with Mikey and you love when I kiss him and sing songs to him.
You're getting really good at doing hand gestures with songs like Twinkle Twinkle Little Star, Head Shoulders Knees and Toes, Pat-a-Cake, and Itsy Bitsy Spider. You also love to twirl in skirts and practice walking backwards and sideways. You pretty much run wherever you go, so that makes for lots of trips and stumbles. But, you're getting good at picking yourself back up again :)
You love to play in the house GranEllen made for you and will spend a lot of time in there playing by yourself, eating a snack, or pretending to have a tea party. Your new best friend is Ellie the purple elephant. You love to dress her, feed her, and give her water through her trunk :) She spends a lot of time in your house with you, too :)
You've gotten really good at putting your head through the shirt but we're still working on getting the arms in there :)
Our time outdoors is still a must and now that Daddy has expanded our play area, we have so much more room to have fun! He built a garden for us and we're going to get a little tee pee and pool for you! One of your favorite activities is to pick up the dog's food that fell on the floor and transfer it from dog bowl to dog bowl or feed the dogs directly. The pups have gotten really good with you and you can now run around in the yard with them and have fun :) It helps that the weather is so hot and they are not a frisky :)
