22 Months Old

Our little Brooklynn is 22 months old! Seriously...she's almost 2. How did this happen so quickly?

She is at SUCH a cute and fun age. I feel like I say this every month. We really love her. It's hard to imagine that we'll be able to love another child as much as we love her, I feel like I don't have enough love left! I know we will, it's just hard to imagine right now.

Brooklynn is such a little ham, and whenever she makes us laugh she repeats whatever she did over and over again. Or if she hears us laughing she chimes in and it's so funny. She has no idea. It's like someone who wouldn't understand an inside joke tries to laugh along. So cute. What's really fun, is she honestly truly does make us laugh now.

Brooklynn is very shy around people she doesn't know well, though. It's so weird to see her act so differently. She is definately a Mommy's girl. It's getting really hard for me because when she gets upset about something she really just wants me to pick her up and hold her; and that is getting nearly impossible to do with my sciatica (and it also gives me Braxton Hicks contractions.) Luckily, she is getting more independent and will walk most places, I just hold her hand and that seems to be good enough for her.

She is also very sweet to Gabby, every night at bedtime she drinks her bottle and puts her hand or her head (or both) on my belly to feel her tiny kicks. She also gives my belly plenty of kisses and hugs. It's so sweet. She loves other babies, too. Every time we're out and she sees another kid (often the kid will be even older than herself) she cries out, "BABY!" and gets so excited.

She is still going through her hitting phase. She's getting better. She's starting to do it more when she gets upset instead of for no apparent reason. Hopefully that will be over soon. I'm usually able to prevent her from hitting poor Cece more and more, but sometimes I'm not. We've been consistent with the time-outs and then the "no cookie" rule if she does hit anybody on a particular day. It seems to help her for the rest of the day, but I'm not sure how to get her not to do it AT ALL.

She's talking more and more all the time. We're hoping that by Thanksgiving she can say everybody's name, or at least her own version of everybody's name. She gets so excited when she masters it. She continues to say "Adeline, Andrew, Betsey and Mia" all the time. We really are working on it. She CAN point to everyone in both of our families when you say the name, so she knows who everyone is, she just can't pronounce everything yet. Maybe at least by Christmas.