Noelle at 18 months!

It’s finally time I translate all my scribbles I’ve been leaving on various scraps of paper around the house!

Here are some wonderful things I want to remember about little Noellie at 18 months old:

She says so many words that I stopped keeping up. Even more exciting to me, she has even begun speaking in sentences! Not all the time, but the ones Rust and I have caught have been:

• “I want that.”
• “I want Daddy.”
• “Put it on.” (referring to a shoe)
• “I don’t like it.” (during a particularly poopy diaper change)
• “Good girl!”
• “Draw paper.”
• “Thank you Daddy.”
• “No thank you.”
• “I love you.”
• “Eww, yucky!” and “Stinky poopoo.”

For the past two months, she has been answering “yeah” (always in a whisper) or “no” (almost always loud & aggressively, usually: NO NO NO!) out loud to questions. Sometimes she says “uh-uh” for no and “mmm-hmmm” for yes. She also nods yes or shakes her head no. I LOVE this! We are really communicating! She is letting us know her preferences, choices, etc. Of course, she also does a fair bit of high-pitched SCREAMING when something bothers or offends her. And she has shown us she knows exactly what a temper tantrum is. : )

She knows the difference between hot and cold. She’ll say both, and blow for ‘hot’ and say ‘brrr!’ after saying cold.

She knows what a circle and a square are, and she can draw a circle. She just learned the color pink — and LOVES anything pink! Anna is also helping her learn green, blue, red, and yellow, too.

She loves her one-piece footie pajamas and will often bring them to me in the middle of the day in hopes I will put them on her.

Her favorite books are: Richard Scarry’s Cars & Trucks from A-Z apple book, Richard Scarry’s Biggest Word Book Ever!, Raindrop Plop, Goodnight Moon, The House That Jack Built, and any Little Blessings board books.

Whenever Anna or I sing, Noelle pauses to listen attentively, and as soon as the song ends, she exclaims, “Ginn! Ginn!” for again. She LOVES singing.

She has even begun singing along to these songs: “EIEIO” (Old MacDonald), the alphabet song, Rock-a-Bye Baby, Row Row Row Your Boat, Ring Around the Rosies, O Little Noelle (a made-up song my momma used to sing to me and both our girls LOVE). If she doesn’t know the words to some songs, she’ll just contribute by singing “ahhhhhh!”

Noelle puckers and smacks her lips when giving kisses. She will randomly run up to Anna and give her hugs. She is extremely affectionate with the few people she’s comfortable with!

Noelle loves accessories: her owl backpack, shoes, socks, hairbands. She hates hats, however.

She says and identifies all parts of the face.

She just learned how to go downstairs backwards and is learning to go downstairs standing upright while holding our hands.

With new situations, she is extremely nervous and timid. Within ONE minute of being outside in the snow, she slipped and fell and immediately ran sobbing into the house. She kept saying “no no no!” when I asked her if she wanted to go back out in it.

She still has a favorite plush doll (that was Anna’s) which is “My Baby” and whom she sleeps with every night. She gravitates towards anything that resembles a babydoll.

She loves to draw on paper with crayons, and she also LOVES the Magna-doodle Anna got for her birthday.

Other words she says in her toddler way: sorry, get down, all done, help, carry, paper, downstairs, pajamas (sounds nothing like it, though!), shoes, sticker, draw, paper, crayon, mine!, My Mommy!, put on, night-night, Grandpa, Grandma, Nanna, John, girl, My Baby, diaper.

One of her favorite things is a slide. “Wheeeeeee! Ide, ide!”

Noelle will point to pictures and says “Me!” even if it isn’t her.

She will also point to herself and say “Well! Well!” for Noelle.

If she has a poopie (which she tells me every time now), she will get out the wipes and diaper from her backpack and lay down in the middle of the floor waiting for me to change her.

She has been able to feed herself with a fork or spoon for the last month. Mealtimes are still messy, but she loves this independence and is often reluctant to relinquish her utensil at the end of meal time.

Noelle is affectionate and warm and cuddly towards family and those she is comfortable with. With others, it takes quite a while for her to grow comfortable with them enough to even SMILE and acknowledge them when they talk to her! She is slow to warm-up and tough to win over, and at times she seems determined to appear grumpy towards others and fight smiles when her natural inclination would be to grin right back.

She wants to attempt new things on her own at first. Any effort to intervene and help is met with frustration & protests. We’ve learned that we need to let her try for herself, first, and when she is good and ready she will finally ask for help.

I love my sweet ladylou!!!

{Just for fun: Noelle at One Year | Anna at 18 Months}

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