A couple Several days ago (started this a couple weeks ago and didn’t finish… *sigh), Demi Grey hit the year and a half mark! The development that happens between 1 and 2 years is just a joy to witness. She does new things everyday, she mimics her brother and all the adults around her, she makes us laugh with her expressions, she’s just hilarious and sassy and smart and so much fun!

Here’s a snapshot of this funny monkey at a year and a half:

Communicating:

• She says “up” when she wants to go up or down, so up means up and up means down
• When she wants you to open something (anything) she says, “pop?” even if it doesn’t actually pop, like a ziplock bag or a jar of pickles
• When something is gross or dirty, she scrunches up her face and says “cucky”, but then if you repeat that back to her, she thinks you said cracker or cookie
• She’s been asking (yelling) for milk for a while, saying “milll” and just a few days ago she tacked on a ‘k’ but it took an effort. It sounded like “milll….K”.
• Birds are “tweet tweets”
• Dogs are “woof woofs” or puppies
• All bugs including flies, lady bugs and ants are “bees”
• If you say “did you go to Inny’s house today?” she says “Inny!” “Poppy!”
• She has almost comedic timing on saying “bye!” because she picks up on the cues in a conversation that we’re about to say goodbye and she shouts “BYE!”
• When she is really excited, she yells, claps and says “yay! yay! yay!” and it is maybe the cutest thing I’ve ever seen in my life. I need to get it on camera.
• When she wants a dabble of something like ketchup or toothpaste, she asks by saying “boop?”
• When I was growing up, we called farts “fluffs” (this is making me laugh), but we call them toot toots. When anyone toots including herself, she makes a scrunch face and says ‘toot toot’.
• She knows everything that is hot including the stove, the coffee maker, steaming food, the toaster, the decking outside my office, etc. and whenever she says “hot”, she whispers it softly, “hot”.
• For cold things, she says “brrrr…”
• It took her a bit to figure out the word “ice” but now she very loudly and articulately asks for “IIIISSSSSSSSS”
• “Brother” and “water” sound a lot alike, so it might be only Joe and I that can hear the subtle differences
• Other words she’s mastered recently: brush, tissue, yummy, yucky, bike, all done

Favorites:

• Brother! My goodness she loves brother. She says “brother” about 217 times a day. She points to brother’s belongings and says “brother”, she hears him in the other room and says “brother”, he does something funny and she laughs and says “brother”.
• Walking Mila. She calls her Mimi and she pulls out the leash and makes the kiss sound to make Mila come to her.
• She loves her babies. We have almost no baby accessories, so I feel inclined to give her a few. For now, she likes holding them, kissing them and making a funny lovey face when she holds them.

• Shoes. She puts on ev-er-y-ones shoes, no matter the size and tries clomping around in them. Her favorite shoes to put on are Cam’s gray natives. She’s often walking around the house in just one of them. Some days she insists on wearing particular shoes even if I want her to wear different ones.
• Being chased.
• Brushing her teeth (with other peoples’ toothbrushes). She points to the medicine cabinet and yells “teeth!”
• The happy birthday song, but she only knows, “happy, happy, happppppyyyy…”

• Water! Includes the beach, pools, the hose, the bath, a cup she can make a mess with, all of it.

Dislikes:

• Mushrooms. This is the only thing I’ve seen her pull out of her mouth because she didn’t like it.
• When we stop her from doing something dangerous (climbing ladders, etc.), she gets angry, “no! no! no!”
• Being inside when anyone is outside.

Comparing her to Cam:

• She is strong willed, for certain, but she cooperates more than Cam. Example: half the time we change her diaper, we ask her if she wants a new diaper and she lays down on her back and waits. Cam didn’t do this, not even once, in his entire diaper-wearing days.
• She is just a verbal as Cam was at this age so far as I can remember. I’ve been told that when you have a talker as a first child, the second child talks less, but I don’t think that’s the case with Cam and Demi.
• Size-wise, they’re both on the same track… high percentiles all-around. Big heads,tallish and meaty, just like I like them!

• Both kids are shy in new situations with new people, but Demi warms up quickly and then acts like herself. Cam would always take longer to warm up and sometimes wouldn’t at all depending on his mood.
• They both love all food for the most part. Thank goodness they’re good eaters.
• Their favorite number at this age is 9. I remember that was Cam’s first number and it’s Demi’s too. If she hears you counting, she’ll always say ‘nine’.

Worst moments:

• She has streaks of several nights in a row where she wakes up angry and doesn’t want anyone to touch her and we can’t figure out if it’s a night terror or growing pains or what, but this goes on for a while, sometimes a few minutes and on the worst nights a couple hours.
• We’re battling an epic rash around her mouth, which we believe started with teething. She had 6 total teeth, 4 on top and 2 on bottom, then plateaued for over 4 months. All of a sudden, she busted 4 sets of teeth, so 8 total teeth and a bunch of molars. This caused drooling and falling asleep on the bottle for comfort and now we just can’t get rid of it.
• Croup! Just last night, she went to bed happy and woke up a half hour later barking like a seal. It was significantly less scary than when Cam got croup the first time. We thought he was going to die because he couldn’t even get a solid breath, whereas her breathing was just labored. After a couple hours, her breathing evened out and we all sort of slept.

Best moments:

• Her brother’s birthday. She snagged a cookie and ran like a bandit before I could take a group photo and generally just acted like she owned the place.
• Summer beach and pool days.

• Meeting her cousin Steely
• Running amok at Uncle Andy’s and Aunt Darlene’s

• Boating on San Diego Bay

Demi Grey is picking up new skills and words daily. She is just like the Sour Patch commercials… first they’re sour and then they’re sweet. And her sweetness overpowers her sassy/sour side by a landslide. She is beautiful, hilarious, and full of personality. We love this munchkin so dearly, there aren’t enough moments in the day to smooch her squishy cheeks.