18 months

My baby has morphed into a toddler. When Jay turned 18 months old, I was already large and pregnant with Rose. When Rose turned 18 months old, I was sick and pregnant with an eventual miscarriage. This is my first time caring for an 18 month old child without another baby inside me! I've said it before, and I'll say it again: it is weird being done having babies. I feel my life stre-e-e-tching before me far beyond these few short intense years with small children who squeeze out every ounce of love and patience I can give them. [Oy! No Cheezits on the carpet!]

Amber is growing up before my very eyes. Rose starts kindergarten this fall. Jay turns seven years old next week. Life is fast, furious, and full. But every now and then it all screeches to a halt and I wonder what next? What will I do when I don't have any small humans to take care of? I know there will always be tasks and cleaning and errands to fill my days, but what will I do in between all of that? Right now I don't think I need to know these heart wrenching answers because just as I am different now than I was seven years ago, I know that in another seven years I will be different than I am now--who knows what I'll be ready for then? So I keep a small drawer of dreams, periodically adding to or removing from it based on the changes I experience from living life. Every now and then I open the drawer to admire my dreams. Some are big and sparkly, others are small and soft. Some are hard and others are scrunched up way in the back, half forgotten. I am alternately dazzled, inspired, and terrified when I peek into my drawer of dreams. Most importantly, though, right now I am living my biggest dream of all. Happy sigh. Glad I got that off my chest. [DO NOT hit your sister!]

Above our piano I have a row of three picture frames. The first frame has a picture of 18 month old Jay in it and the second one holds a picture of 18 month old Rose. The third frame has been empty for a long time. Yesterday I opened the curtains wide and tried to get a picture of Amber to put in that last frame. I love this age: there's still enough baby in kids' faces to be soft and utterly sweet, but their features have started taking on some defining characteristics of their future, older selves. And it's the magic age where they can start going to nursery at church. When Jay turned 18 months old, Jeff took the cutest picture of that little man-child standing on our front porch, all dressed up for his first day of nursery at church. Ever since then I have been quite attached to the first-Sunday-in-nursery picture. Amber's first official Sunday in nursery also happened to be Mother's Day this year, and since I wanted my yearly mom-with-kids picture before church that day, I ended up taking pictures of Amber later in the week. There are only so many photo shoots that you can ask of a one year old after all. [No screaming in the house!]

I put Amber on my bed to contain her for the pictures--outdoor pictures are always preferable, but Amber squints in the sun and runs away from the camera outside.

 Amber teases Rose all the time by pulling her hair and pinching and poking her. She doesn't like it when the tables are turned!

I've been experimenting with the power of cropping pictures. I'm no expert, but I can copy the experts a little, with my small selection of free Windows 10 photo tools.

Amber had her 18 month doctor checkup last week, complete with three shots and lots of tears. She weighs exactly 24 pounds (46th%) with shoes on, and is 32.5 inches tall (75th%). She loves her brother and sister and has started talking to them more. She calls Jay "Daaaaay!" and shouts his name in the morning when we're running late. She calls Rose "Woe" and teases her relentlessly with her sharp fingernails. She also says "bye dee" (bite please) when she wants a bite, and ah-duh when she's all done. She calls her Wub "Wa" in a cute high voice and has started adding the B to the end. Sometimes it comes out "bwa" instead. This morning she said Elsa. Like Elsa from Disney's Frozen. I was folding laundry and Rose's Elsa shirt was on top of the stack. Amber walked in and said "Ah-dah" when she saw the shirt. It took me a minute to realize that she was talking about Elsa. Then I took a video of her saying it. Rose must've been giving her private princess lessons. First words are so fun. Every time the squeaky basement door opens, Amber calls out "DADA!!" (even if it's not him) because that's the sound of Jeff coming home. 

Amber loves macaroni and cheese and riding plasma cars outside. She's really getting the hang of scooting around the driveway on them at an impressive speed. She likes to follow Rose around and do whatever Rose is doing. She finally started folding her arms for prayers a few weeks ago. After family prayer each night, we do hugs and Amber loves going around the circle, hugging everyone as many times as we'll let her before bedtime. 

Amber has gone to nursery at church twice without a parent. The second time she needed a diaper change and wouldn't stay in nursery afterwards, but I still say so far so good.

On Wednesday, May 4th Amber bit the tip off of the binky on her Wubbanub monkey (aka, the Wub). I always said that once the Wub dies, Amber will be done with binkies. I didn't know it would be so soon! I wasn't ready! But I stuck to my resolution and snipped the rest of the binky-tip off, let Amber watch me remove it from the monkey, and then said "uh-oh! It's broken. Throw it away." over and over. She kept moaning in frustration while trying to put the two pieces of the Wub back together and suck on the nipple-less binky. Finally I took the binky and tossed it in the trash. She still sleeps with the manky monkey. Sometimes she puts the monkey itself into her mouth. Much to my surprise, Amber had zero problems getting to sleep or staying asleep on her first night without the binky. It was the easiest, smoothest transition--and it had nothing to do with my parenting prowess. Amber's just awesome like that.