Closer to 2.

Somebody hit the 21 month mark today! And that somebody has hair long enough for the world's most adorable pigtails now :)

Brooke seems so much older to me this month. And way, way bigger (imagine that, considering we have a child one-third her size hanging around now.) She's only 3 months away from being 2 years old, 3 months that I am certain are going to fly by. I know I haven't posted as much about this munchkin lately, but she'll have to learn to share the blog, along with all the rest of her stuff, from now on. Here's her monthly update:

~ I'd say the biggest and most obvious change to our little lady is her new status as Joe's big sister. Talk about the biggest adjustment of her short little life! While there are many times when she has to be patient and wait while we tend to him, she still gets an incredible amount of our attention right now. The boy sleeps like 18 hours a day, so she gets plenty of face-time. She has welcomed "Baby Joe" with open arms. She must be too young to realize that he's the reason she does miss out on our attention every so often; she doesn't seem to blame him or try to push him out of the way. She loves to help us do things in regards to Joe: get a diaper (even though we usually change him within arms' reach of the basket of diapers), bring him a pacifier, put on his hat, give him a bath, etc. And she really likes to hold him...for about 15 seconds and then she's "all done".

~ Brooke Mary is the proud owner of 3, count 'em, 3 new teeth. As of this week. 3 canines in 1 week = awesome. She's been getting up ridiculously early for the last week and I'm going to go ahead and blame her 3 new friends.
~ She asks herself questions and then answers them & tells herself she's correct. "Big one or little one? Big one, right!" Sometimes I'll start to answer her and then realize she's taking care of it all on her own. "Boy or girl? Girl, right!" Hilarious the first time I heard it.
~ She's starting to learn how to get dressed. She's much better at getting undressed, the first step towards successful potty training. She does struggle to get the pants over her feet sometimes, though...

~ Brooke has an incredible imagination. My most favorite example of this comes when she spends time "mixin' dinner" in her playroom with her fake food. Yesterday, she made me a "pizza" in a bowl, the contents of which were 2 cupcakes and a can of Coke. She also told me that it included "sugar and sprinkles". Clearly she knows her sugar-loving mother well. On today's menu: another pizza in a bowl made of a croissant, a red chili pepper, a can of sardines, and an orange hippo bath toy. Oh, and then she brought me some sprinkles for this one, too. It's little things like this that I hope I never forget.
~ Sometimes she pretends to sleep and will actually fake snore. She'll say "sweet dreams" and lay on the floor and start snoring. I think Elmo taught her this one.
~ We enrolled Brooke in 2 1-hour toddler classes down at the Rec. We're about 3 weeks in and this chica loves it! Less than half of the class is actually structured, it's mostly just a lot of playtime. But she's interacting with other kids her age, something she doesn't get enough of with a stay-at-home mom. She knows her 2 teachers' names, knows exactly which room is the classroom, and knows what comes next during the structured part of the class. I'm so glad she is enjoying this, as it's dirt cheap and a great way to ease her into a real preschool class in a couple years.
~ This little lady of ours has become quite the songbird. She sings all day long! She has an ever-growing list of songs that she knows (meaning she has at least 75% of the words down.) The current list: ABC's, Twinkle Twinkle Little Star, Itsy Bitsy Spider, Wheels on the Bus, the Bumblebee song, and the Sesame Street Theme Song. Her favorite part of her toddler class is when we all sit in a circle and just sing songs. And even though she's one of the youngest in the class (age range is 18 months to 3 years), she's probably the loudest singer. In fact, she's one of the few kids that actually sings at all. She doesn't just sing; she puts on a performance, especially when it's her turn to pick a song. The other moms in the class laugh along with me as we watch the sass just pour on out of her.

This is the crazy toddler we live with. Adorable, sure, but still crazy.