Ruby -- Month 17

Oh my goodness! This age is SO. MUCH. FUN. I seriously love spending time with Ruby. Its sad for me to put her to bed at night because I genuinely love hanging out with her. She is sweet, determined, and really, really funny! She's learning and soaking everything up so quickly, and watching her grow is the best thing ever.

Ruby's vocabulary has taken off this month! She is saying SO many words. It is so fun hearing her learn to talk, and come up with her cute little Ruby renditions for words. It would be impossible to list all the words she is saying, because she really is talking so much, but I would like to highlight some of my favorites.
-Bath "Baaaht"
-Snack "Naak"
-Yes "YESH!" (my favorite)
-Bye (said in a very country, southern accent) "Biii"
-Ball "bah"
-Cereal "see-roll"
-More "moh" (usually in a little whiney voice).
-Elmo "la-la-la"
-Book "buh"
-Bible "bib-el"
-Flower "oww-ah"
-Shoes "shoosh"
-Socks "ock"
-Baby "be-be"
-Counting to 3: "uhhh - ooooh - eeee!!!"
-Car "vrrroom vrrroom"
-Trees "tees"
-Patting her babies back. She says "pat, pat, pat"
-Names: Mama, Dada, Banjo "an-jooooo" (usually preceded by "NO! NO!"), DD, Dano, Rachel "Ray-Ray", Anna "nana", Beckett "Bet-bit", Nolan "Noh-Noh", Margret "Mah-geh"
-Animal noises: Added frog "ribbit ribbit", rabbit "hop-hop" and bird "twee-twee" to her animal sounds repertoire this month.

Ruby's appetite has increased some this month. She is not quite as picky as before, and usually will try what you put in front of her. Breakfast is her favorite meal and the meal that she eats the most at. She loves eggs, bananas, granola bars, yogurt, cereal, muffins, and toast. I made banana bread last week and she was constantly pointing to the kitchen signing more and saying "bed" (bread). She's still kind of finicky about meat, but LOVES chick-fil-a chicken. I haven't been successful in getting her to eat much beef, but we really don't eat beef often, so that could be why. I've still been making her smoothies, which she loves and sucks down so fast. I've slowly added more and more green veggies to them, and she hasn't even noticed. She's maintained her weight this month at 23 lbs, and is wearing mostly 12-18 month clothing. She has the funniest, cutest little toddler frame you ever did see with skinny, short legs and arms and a round, kissable potbelly. She looks so funny in a onesie with pants with her big belly and little legs. I love it.

Ruby's dreaded bottom, back left molar FINALLY made it's entrance after a good month and a half of cutting through. I don't see any new teeth right now, so she's currently got 12 total. It feels great to have a little relief from teething.

Which brings me to my next subject: SLEEP. Ruby has been sleeping a million and ten times better than she was. I think her messed up sleep schedule was thanks to a mixture of her teeth bothering her, and our holiday schedule messing her up. She has been sleeping great though, with only a night here and there of fighting sleep. She never WANTS to go to bed. When we tell her it's bedtime she almost always cries and says "nooo!" and makes up reasons to not go to bed (asking for milk, mama, baby, etc), but once she gets in there and snuggles with her animals she usually is asleep in 5 minutes. We pushed her bedtime back to 8:30, and she usually wakes up around 7:30 or so, sometimes sleeping a little later on the weekends. She's taking two hour naps at school, and usually a little over two hour naps at home. One huge change this month was she is now sleeping on a nap mat at school instead of a crib. I can't imagine how they get a classroom full of 1 year olds to sleep on mats at naptime...but they do it!

Health wise, we almost had a sickness free month. Unfortunately, our girl got her first stomach bug. Thankfully it only lasted 24 hours, and didn't really seem to affect her mood at all. She had a terrible diaper rash afterward though and it left her traumatized to take a bath (I think the bath water really hurt her poor booty). Since then she has really disliked sitting down in the bathtub. She still asks for baths and gets excited about them, but once we get in there she freaks out if you try and make her sit down.

Ruby has recently become highly obsessed with babies. She loves to mama and take care of her baby dolls, but loves real live babies even more. She likes to carry around the two birth announcements (Becketts & Ashers) that we have on our fridge, kissing them, and hugging them. When we see Beckett in person, it's like he's Justin Timberlake, she screams "BET-BIT!!!" and wants to hold, hug, kiss, and "pat, pat, pat" him. When he is laying on the ground she bends down with her hands on her knees and looks over him so sweetly. Seeing her interact with these babies makes me so excited to see her as a big sister. I know it's not going to be all sunshine and roses and she might have some pretty heavy feelings of jealousy, but I really think she is going to be the sweetest big sister ever. She loves to hug and kiss my belly, but I think is a little confused about the whole concept of a human being in there. Someone at church asked her "where's your baby sister?" the other day and she lifted up her shirt and patted her belly. Ha!

Favorite things:
-Babies
-Mama & Dada
-Banjo
-All animals
-Books
-Dancing (she starts grooving the second she hears any music, but really loves to dance to Katy Perry's song "roar")
-Sesame Street
-Lucky charms (I know, terrible mother...)
-Smoothies (does this make up for the last one?!)

Not-so-favorite things:
-Shoes & Socks. She usually likes putting them on, but they are usually off within 10 minutes. Especially if we get in the car. That's the first thing to go.
-Car rides. Depending on her mood, she can sometimes tolerate going in the car, but if she's the slightest bit cranky or tired- forget about it!
-Highchair. The highchair got the boot this month. She simply refused to sit in it, much less eat in it. Thankfully we bought the handy graco that can turn into a seat that attaches to a regular dining room table, and that compromise seemed to do the trick.
-Grocery shopping and not being allowed to walk around, tear everything off of the shelves and destroy things (I'm mean, right?!).

Beautiful girl, 

You are so challenging, but with every challenge that we come across with you comes 10 times the smiles, delight, and joy. There's no way these posts could accurately describe your feisty, tenacious, and incredibly sweet personality. You bring so much light and love into our lives. These 17 months with you have been the best. I pray every day that you keep your determined, yet kind and loving spirit forever and ever. Never change, baby.

All the love in the world, 

Mama