Carson - 19 Months

At 19 Months:

• Her favorite "lullaby" lately is "Happy Birthday to you" or "Hap you you". HA! I think this started after her little buddy Noah's birthday party. We sing "Happy Birthday" to everyone. She makes request as I start a new verse, Mike Mike, Kath, Nana, Noah, Nas (Nicholas), B-Brock, J (Thomas J), Aison (Alison), Mommy, Daddy, Weed.
• She picked up a new blankie this month, a monkey that was Reed's when he was a baby, but it seems that maybe this phase has passed. She doesn't even ask to hold them anymore. That was quick.
• She went through a phase for a few weeks where we could just lay her down at night after reading her stories and she would go to sleep without too much crying. She would often request her "bed" and wouldn't even offer to lay her head on my shoulder when I rocked her at night. This past weekend we were out of town and she refused to even let me lay her down in the pack and play. Talk about a change, however, she has been much better at going down since we got home. She cried it out for a few minutes last night while I was reading with Reed and then let me rock her to sleep tonight, which I honestly don't mind since I have had a glimpse of the days when she no longer lets me do that. Sigh.
• In order to avoid sleep, she will says "hands" asking for lotion ("loch") or antibacterial, "milk" (even if she has already had hers at dinner), and then she will name every part of my face...nose, mouf, eyes, chin, head, hair, ears. She'll do this continuously until I make her stop.
• Every time we hear a siren pass us while in the car, she says "uh oh". 
• She went through a very short phase of licking on every window she came near. I am glad that didn't last long.
• One night when I had a girls' night, Chris put the kiddos to bed. I went in to check on Carson after I got home. I came out with her pj's in my hands. Needless to say, Chris was as surprised as me. The silly girl had completely come out of her pj's. Silly girl. Sometimes we find her with the front of her shirt trapped entirely behind her head with her arms still in. She usually lets us know about this pretty quickly.
• She continues to love to put hers or her brothers pj's on over her clothes. And any other clothing item, really. Today she had a shirt on her legs.
• She makes the most precious pouty, sad face.
• She started giving me light pats on the cheeks. Sometimes they are followed up with a very hard slap. Gotta love those light pats though.
• She just started saying "hold me" instead of "hold you". So sad for me. Thankfully, she uses them interchangeably.
• Her favorite book to read is "One Fish, Two Fish, Red Fish, Blue Fish". Thankfully, she doesn't know that I am skipping pages when I read it to her. I like to switch it up and read opposite the pages each time. She hasn't started requesting a particular page yet. She also loves Silly Sally and Go Do Go (or Go Reed Go as she calls it).
• The day before she turned 19 months, Carson got her first stomach bug. : ( We were actually in Cashiers, NC with friends when she woke up sick on a Sunday morning. We headed home for fear of getting our friends sick as well and she got sick way too many times on the way home. Poor thing. She proceeded to get sick again on Tuesday morning, Thursday morning and Thursday night. Ugh, no fun!
• She has gone from saying "mick-i" to "Mickey" to "Mickey House" (Mickey Mouse Clubhouse).
• When we ask her her name she says "Charson", but sometimes she says Mommy. If she does decide her name is Mommy, then I am Charson and so is Reed and so is Daddy.
• After getting hurt today, she climbed up in my lap and said "oh my Mommy".
• She loves the song "Wheels on the Bus". She rolls her arms for the wheels, points at her back for move on back, "wa wa's" with the babies and "shh shh's" with the mommies.

Mother-Son Dance!

The church where Reed goes to preschool hosted a Mother-Son dance last night. Reed and I had such a good time getting dressed up and heading out to dance together. We snacked on yummy treats, danced and had our picture made in the photo booth. It was a great night with my little guy. He said "we had the best week night (date night), didn't we?!?" Yes, we did, buddy, yes we did!

We're playing bas-ket-ball!

Our little guy just wrapped up his first season of basketball! It was so much fun to watch him get better as the weeks went on. He hasn't been bitten by the aggressive bug on the court yet, unlike most of his teammates, but he is so good at dribbling and does a pretty good job at playing defense. We can't wait to see him continue to learn and enjoy playing basketball. It is definitely one of the more fun sports to watch. We hope he continues to like it!

Carson - 18 Months!

Stats:
Weight: 22 lbs. 14 oz. (20th percentile)
Height: 33 5/8 inches (90th percentile)

At 18 Months:

• Instead of Mommy, my name has become Mommy, Mommy, Mommy. Chris mentioned that she actually sounds like Sheldon from The Big Bang Theory...Penny, Penny, Penny. It is as if everything is urgent at this point in her life.
• This past month she had a double ear infection. She was not feeling well at all on Christmas. I took her in the day after Christmas. The doctor thought she might have the flu but she tested negative, so they ruled it to be a virus. After not feeling any better after the weekend, I took her back in and she had a very bad double ear infection. : ( The doctor even prescribed some numbing drops for her ears. Poor baby girl. The funny this is that she loved those drops so much. She would climb up on the couch onto my lap and say "drops, drops". She would then put her head on my lap for the drops and then rotate her head to get drops in the other ear. Seems too grown up for her age!
• Chris's parents got a new puppy. Even though she says dog when she sees it, she often goes over later and says "meow, meow". Hilarious.
• On 12/30, I got her out of bed and "I love you" to her and she said "you too". Sweetness!
• She is very interested in anything and everything that Reed does. If Reed goes to the bathroom, she is right behind him to check things out.
• Speaking of potty.....Chris asked her the other day if she wanted to go potty. She said "yes", so he took her and sat her on the potty. She didn't do anything, of course, but she has asked me multiple times to go potty or has said "poop" or "pee pee" while pointing at her diaper.
• She loves to watch Mickey Mouse ("me-i") and Elmo (still "mo-mo").
• She has started saying "old you" (hold you), which I love so much.
• She has started acting out a bit. She will throw herself on the floor if she doesn't get what she wants. Yesterday, while in Target, she didn't want to sit in the cart, so I let her down. She repeatedly ran away from me as fast as she could go. Whenever I would get to her, she would flail until she was laying on the gross Target floor. Since we didn't HAVE to have anything from there that day, I picked her up like a football and carried her out of the store. She screamed pretty much the whole way to the car. Dear.
• Shoes are "yous".
• Her favorite book right now is "Go, Dog, Go". We read it before nap time and bedtime every. single. day.
• If there is a stray piece of clothing of hers or Reed's, she will try to put it on. She tried to put her pj's on over her clothes the other day. She got one leg in the arm of her shirt.
• She loves to get Chris's socks out of his drawer and put them on her hands.
• She always, always takes her socks and shoes off when she is in the car. Lately, she has started trying to put her socks back on. She successfully got both halfway back on the other day. 
• She has recently taken a liking to two small blankies. One is a dog that was Reed's and another is a bunny. She requests them when she wakes up and holds them while we read stories at bedtime. Just the other day when we went in her room, she said "hey doggie". I hope this is the beginning of her loving to get in her bed to go to sleep!
• She loves for us to "wun, wun" (run) while holding her or just chasing her.
• She loves to brush her teeth. She often requests to brush them first thing in the morning or whenever someone else is brushing their teeth.
• I give her my phone to entertain sometimes. She refuses to let Reed look at whatever she is doing. She will literally bury the phone into a pillow so that she can't see it either before she will let her brother see it. We have seriously got to work on this sharing thing. We have a long way to go.
• She did the cutest thing on Tuesday night. Chris had a small bag of Nilla wafers. She got up on the couch with him, obviously wanting one. Chris gave her one. She was so excited! She plopped down right beside him. She then looked at him, patted him on the chest, put her arm around his neck and leaned her head over to his. It was the cutest thing ever. I almost cried. What a sweet girl!
• She often requests us to hold things for us. "Hold it!"