(written May 22nd)

“Say cheese!” Clothing size: 12-18 month pants, 12-18 month shorts, 12-18 month onesies, 2T tees, and 12-18 month jammies. I did bust out her 18-24 month onesies and summer jammies, but there is definitely still room to grow in them! Size 5 shoes.
Eyecolor: Hazel/Gray/Greenish.
Teeth: Eighteen.
Eating: This has been a great month as far as eating goes. She’s back to loving yogurt (seriously, she gets sooo excited at the grocery store about it that she barely lets us put it in the cart instead of straight into her mouth). The flavors she loves include cherry, strawberry, strawberry-banana, blueberry, and raspberry. And she’s still addicted to cheese! She loves to eat salad and pizza, too. We still give her a muffin in the morning, but lately, she hasn’t finished it and would rather have cereal or yogurt. It makes me so happy to see her fill up her belly with good food!
New words: Hooo-hooo (like an owl), stick, blue, bye-bye, boo!, crocodile (it’s in one of her books), shoes.
Favorite things: Playing outside, bubbles, ducks (rubber or real), stuffed animals (Kitty is still the favorite, but she really loves her lambs and puppies, too), reading books, riding her rocking horse, and jumping in her old exersaucer!
Dislikes: Bees and being told no? But who does like those things?
Sleep: Bedtime is anywhere between 7 and 8pm, and she wakes up between 7 and 8am lately. Naps are about 2.5-3 hours long and start anywhere between 11 and 1 pm these days.
Nicknames: Just because I know one day we’ll forget, these days we call her: Bird, Birdy, Peekabird, Peeky, Stompy, and Sweets.
Milestones, etc.: -She blows kisses with her hand.
-She gives kisses on the cheek!
-She’s now a pro at fake sneezing.
-She could wave goodbye before, but now she does it to everyone and everything all the time.
-She is starting to put a couple of words together at a time… really just with “bye-bye” though. She’ll say “bye Daddy” or “bye-bye toes” when we’re putting her shoes on.
-Michael has always done a “3…2…1!” countdown with her when they play and act silly (something crazy usually happens after the “1”), and so now she’s started counting down too! She does it before she goes down the slide or jumps/falls on purpose. It’s pretty hard to understand though, so I’m pretty sure no one besides Michael and I would have realized that she was counting.
-She can point to most all of her body parts when I ask where they are!
-On a less-than-happy note, real tantrums are starting. She screams tremendously loud when we do something she doesn’t like (and sometimes she’ll just scream for no apparent reason at all).

Dear Kaya,

Before we know it, you’ll be two years old! I guess we’ll stop counting the months at that point. I still can’t believe we only have one more monthly update before your baby sister gets here! You are definitely getting ready for her- you practice changing Kitty’s “diaper” just about every day (a million times a day), and you ask to read your “I’m a Big Sister” book pretty often. You even kiss the baby in the book!

I love that you are such a little monkey these days. The playground is probably your favorite place (and we’ve been going there a whole lot lately)! It’s so fun to watch you climb and discover new things on your own. Even though you’re so busy, you still make time to cuddle with me, and that’s one of my favorite parts of being your mom.