Eighteen Months

Nolin is 18 months old today!!  Wow - time sure does seem to fly by...

This girl continues to amaze me daily.  She is talking so much.  I guess she gets it from her mother!  :)  Her vocabulary is growing tremendously.  We can understand most of what Nolin says.  If we don't understand the words, we can often figure it out through context clues.  However, she is still doing some jibberish.  It is the cutest thing!  Paul & I just talk to her anyway.  She just loves to have conversations with us.  She is even putting together two or three words!

Some of my favorite little things that Nolin says:

• Every time we hit a bump in the car she says, "bump".
• Every time she hears a car horn, car doors locking/unlocking, or anything similar to a click/beep she says, "beep".
• Every time she burps or someone else does she says, "burp".
• Every time she takes a bite of something she says, "mmmmm, mmmmm, mmmmm" or sometimes she says, "nummy, nummy, nummy". 
• Every time she toots or hears someone else she says, "toot".
• Every time she has trash to throw away or we take out the trash she waves her hand & says, "shew!"
• She used to say "sit" pretty well, but now it has gained an h after the s!  LOL 
• Every time I say "okay" Nolin responds with "K".
• Every time we turn a corner in the car she says, "woah".

Nolin is also signing like crazy.  She signs almost all of the signs from the Baby Signing Time series.  I believe there are close to 100 signs in the series.  I love watching her use sign language.  It is so helpful when we have difficulty understanding what she is telling us.  It also helps to keep her from becoming too frustrated. 

Nolin has become super independent over the past few months.  She wants to do everything by herself.  She is feeding herself with utensils & actually does a pretty good job at it.  She recently started walking down the steps on our front porch without sitting down or holding my hand (it makes me so nervous every time!).  I'm pretty sure Nolin would change her own diaper, if she could!  LOL

I'm pretty sure that Nolin's favorite thing(s) right now are babies!  She loves them!  She loves to help her babysitter with the baby she keeps.  Nolin will sit forever just rocking the baby to sleep.  For a while she didn't want to come home, b/c she had to leave the baby.  Now Nolin plays with her baby dolls & takes care of them.  It is so cute to see her standing, holding her baby, swaying back & forth, & saying "shhhh".  She also loves to put her baby to sleep - "night, night".  Nolin also feeds her baby dolls & gives them bottles & pacifiers.  I'm pretty certain that she is going to be the best big sister!!

Dinner Time for Baby Tessa

Nolin has recently become obsessed with the car.  She wants to sit in the driver's seat & pretend that she is driving.  She loves to push all of the buttons.  It is always fun to start the car, b/c there is no telling what she has turned on.  She also loves opening & closing the car doors.  This carries inside too.  She loves to go through the house closing all the doors. 

About a month ago, Nolin decided that she didn't need me to rock her to sleep anymore.  One night she just pointed to her crib & said, "bed".  Since then, she puts herself to sleep.  It broke my heart a little bit, but I know we have been working towards independence.  A few nights ago she did sit in the rocking chair next to me.  We rocked & I sang to her.  Every time the song would end, she would say & sign "more".  It was so sweet.

I'm not sure how many teeth Nolin has right now, b/c getting a good look in her mouth is so difficult!  I would guess that she has around 13 teeth, though.  She has four of her molars right now & those were the worst coming in.

Nolin sits on the potty some.  She knows when she is using the restroom in her diaper, so we thought we would try using the potty.  She went pee pee in the potty a couple of times, but wasn't sure about it.  She kept asking for her diaper to pee in!  She would hold her pee for hours, until we would put a diaper back on her.  So, we stopped trying after a couple of days.  We will try again soon.  She enjoyed the potty when she wasn't expected to use it the right way.  LOL.  She is still young!

Kai & Nolin are definitely big buddies now.  They are able to play together more now that she is bigger.  They even chase each other around the house.  It is so fun to watch them together.

Nolin loves Carly Rae Jepsen's song Call Me Maybe.  She will ask for it - "maybe".  We watch it on YouTube a lot.  She loves to shake her head & dance to it.   She is such a good little dancer!

We've recently started watching the Signing Time farm video.  Nolin is quickly learning the signs for different animals.  She could watch the video all day.  Nolin also loves to make the animal sounds.  She is pretty good at them.  Just for fun we throw in a few other funny things for her to say - "bippity boppity boo", "pop goes the weasel & the weasel goes pop", "hee hee" (she answers that when asked what Michael Jackson says).  :)  It is fun to hear her try to see these things!

Nolin loves to help clean up messes.  If something spills, she runs to get a towel & wipes it up.  She helps pick up her toys & messes also.  The whole time she cleans up, she sings the clean up song.  But she says something more like "ceek up ceek up".  It is cute.  

I'm sure there are so many other things I want to mention, but of course I can't remember them all right now.  My girl is just growing up!