18 Months!

This past Sunday was Darcy's 18 month mark. I was really excited to get to take her to nursery and to actually get to listen a little during church for the first time in a long time. It didn't go over so well though. They brought her to me after 10-15 minutes because she was inconsolable. I ended up having to sit with her for the two hours in nursery which I was pretty bummed about. I tried leaving again a couple different times but she would immediately start screaming again. I've decided I'm just going to keep trying to leave her and hopefully soon she'll decide it's ok.

We are really loving this age. She keeps us on our toes for sure, but she's learning fun new things all the time which is really exciting.

Some things we want to remember about Darcy at 18 months:

- (I didn't pay enough attention at her 18 month appointment so I'm not really sure about these numbers, but I'm going to write down what I think I remember.) 26 lbs. 36 inches tall. She is around the 80th percentile for everything. Her body has finally caught up to her head! :)

- She is such an awesome sleeper at night! She goes to bed - HAPPILY - at 7:30 and wakes up between 7 and 7:30 in the morning. I keep waiting for her to take these 2-3 hours naps during the day that I keep hearing people talk about, but the most she usually sleeps is an hour and a half.

- She still loves all food. Haley introduced her to suckers last week and then they gave her a sucker again at her doctors appointment and she thinks they are the coolest thing ever. I think they are sticky. :)

- She really loves her grandmas and grandpas and aunts and uncles she's been spending time with these past couple months. She is working on saying all of their names.

- A little story. Early in my pregnancy when I was feeling really sick I had one of those really hard days with Darcy when I felt like I couldn't keep her happy because I couldn't do what she wanted me to. That night Drew prayed that Darcy would be able to communicate with me so that it would be easier for me to help her while I was sick. The very next morning she was reaching for some food on the counter and I asked her if she wanted a cracker. Then she repeated "cracker" (which actually sounded more like "caca"). I was SO excited. I had been trying to get her to repeat words for months and months, but she never seemed interested. I really felt like it had been an answer to prayer. I know it's kind of a small thing, but at that moment I really needed it and I felt like it was a tender mercy from Heavenly Father. Ever since then she has started saying lots of new words. THE END

- She says (or at least repeats when we ask her) cracker, juice, socks, shoes, grandma, grandpa, Ash (for Ashley), Jesus, horse, cat, dog, brush, yes, diaper, mama, dada, it go? (for where'd it go?) and a bunch more I can't think of at this moment. So far she can't really say the long "e" sound which is kind of rough because all of my sisters and Darcy have the long "e" sound at the end of their names. I have really been trying to get her to say Ashley and Haley and Darcy, but she just looks at me with a blank stare. Hopefully that will come soon enough.

- If you ask her where something is she will put her arms out to the side with her palms up and shrug her shoulders and say over and over again, "it go? it go?" It's one of our favorite things.

- She is going through another separation anxiety phase.

- She loves the piano. In fact she seems to really love all forms of music. She loves to dance and she has even started singing. I taught her the Gloria song that the angels sing at Christmas and she walks around singing that tune all day long. She likes to drum on her belly and her legs or anything in front of her like Drew does.

- She loves to be free to run around in stores or the mall and she is kind of a charmer with all the people she passes.

- She loves to be outside. No matter how cold it is outside the weather never seems to affect her.

Talking to me with her hands.

Her favorite place in the house.