Mackenna is exactly 18mths old today (that is purely coincidental!) and is honestly the most gorgeous thing I have ever seen in my life (along with her little sister!) There are so many words I can use to describe her, but the one (ok, 2) I think that covers it off the best is... little monkey!!
She is at the age where the world is becoming her oyster. She is learning (very quickly, I might add) about the world and what it has to offer her. She is getting awesome hand-eye coordination and has grown about 3 inches in 2 months and has gone from just being able to reach the top of the table, to being able to pull things off that we have got lined up along the middle (to try and keep them out of her way!) and can now climb anything that is about a metre off the ground.
I'm not going to say that I think my little girl is super smart either, because I'm sure that all 18mth olds are exactly the same and blow their parents away every single day with the things they do, but gee she is smart too!
Here are some bullet points about the things she does to make us smile every day:
- She knows her bedtime ritual better than we do.... once we say it's bedtime, she goes looking for her Teddy and a dummy, says good night to everyone and walks herself to the bathroom door, where it's time to clean her teeth. Once she's done scrubbing, dunking and sipping water she's off to choose a story. And she is always very careful about which story she chooses.... it can sometimes take up to 5 mins (.... sound familiar Nana..... LOL!!) We read her story, then she reads it back to us, have a few nursery rhymes then it's off to bed.... don't leave the stars or the music off though, because you'll be in trouble if you do!! And there is always a headcount of who is in the cot with her.... although, thankfully if someone is missing, it's not the end of the world... unless that someone is Teddy!
- She just loves her sister so much. Without being asked, or without us even watching sometimes, she will often stop the swing, or lean over the rocker or playmat to give Piper a kiss and cuddle, and Piper just loves it. She always says hello and good bye/night to Piper and is generally always very 'gentle' with her. In her attempt to be the best big sister ever, she will take the dummy out of Piper's mouth, just so that she can put it back in and if we have left Piper's dummy's in her swing or rocker chair, Mackenna will pick them up and bring them to us. (Often times, with a quick suck herself, just to be cheeky because she knows she isn't suppose to.) She knows exactly which dummies are hers, and which ones are Piper's too. (They are all different, but the same brand, so look kind of similar.) She also likes to make sure that Teddy and her other 'friends' don't miss out on kisses with Piper! (It really is too cute to see her holding Teddy up to Piper's face for a kiss!)
- She loves her kisses and cuddles and loves making her toys kiss each other too.
- She also loves her food and she likes to share it with her toys too! She will eat just about anything we put in front of her (which we'll take advantage of while it lasts.... I'm sure she'll start getting fussier as she gets bigger and can start voicing her opinions!) and eats very well with a fork. On our holiday, I forgot to take cutlery for her when we went out a few times, and she was using the same as us.... it was obviously too big for her, but she certainly made the best of it!! She will eat it out of a bowl or off a plate, but once she gets bored, it is emptied out so she can play with it!
- She drinks about a litre of water everyday (ok... slight exaggeration, but she is always asking us to refill her cup for her!) She won't drink milk out of sippy cup, but we think it's because she likes the cuddle time of having a bottle first and last thing of the day, which we are more than happy to oblige :)
- She is slowly starting to come out with different words and has quite a little vocabulary going... although, she isn't the kind of kid to say things over and over again. She will say something once and we'll coax her to say it again, but she often won't say it again for a few days. She babbles on in her own little language, but we have to be careful to listen to it, because there is often English words thrown into her sentences!! She has been heard saying some of these words: Daddy (her favourite), Mummy (when she's angry or upset most of the time!), Piper (she says it clear as day... it's so cute!), Nana, Hello, hi, cool, DJ (as in DJ Lance), Toodee, Foofa, Brobee, Plex (yes... she has said Plex.... came out a bit like "Pecs" but I knew she was trying to say Plex!) (.... these are all Yo Gabba Gabba characters btw... she still struggles with Muno though!), turtle, Teddy, bot bot, car (another favourite atm), one, two, three, four... anyway, I'm sure you get the picture.... some words are easy and some are really hard!! One day soon though, I'm sure it's all just going to come together and full sentences are going to come out her mouth. She is funny if she is struggling with a word.... she'll try it once but if she gets it really wrong, that's it - she ain't trying it again!!!
- She loves to colour in with crayons, so we've bought her heaps of colouring in books. She has watched us 'help' her and now realises that the idea is to colour in between the lines. She always goes for the nose first (it's funny to look through her colouring book.. all the noses have some sort of scribble through them!) and gets frustrated when she can't colour the same way that we can. The look of concentration on her face when she is colouring is magic!! She just loves her Magna Doodle too and holds the pen pretty close to the correct way (which she has probably picked up from watching us.) She is definitely going to be right handed too, although there would be no reason for her to be left handed as no one else in our family is.
- She is an awesome little swimmer and LOVES being in the water!! I took her for swimming lessons for the first 6 or so months and was pretty impressed with how well she was doing when Todd started taking over just before Piper was born. Daddy must be a great coach though because since then she has become so confident in the water, that I was completely blown away by how well she was doing!! Monkey monkey's are just too easy for her now and she'll jump into the water from the edge, so long as someone is there to catch her!!!
- She knows all of the things around the house that she isn't too touch, or that she isn't to run around on the couch and will look at us with the cheekiest grin on her face and let out a little giggle just before reaching her hand out to touch it..... so many times, I've had to turn my head and get over my 'smiles' before I can reprimand her. She also lets out a little giggle if she realises that we've left the gate or one of the bedroom doors open, so she'll never be able to sneak out quietly because she gives herself away every time!!
- She is a very good helper with putting things away, especially things that she's pulled out of cupboards that she knows she shouldn't be getting out. She is especially good with taking her nappies (aka "stinkies") to the rubbish, but if we ask her to take one of Piper's, she looks at us like "I'm not touching that stinky thing!"
- She knows exactly where the biscuits are in the pantry and will stand at the door pointing going "bi, bi, bi" if she wants one.
- Actually, she'll stand and point and go "da, da, da" at anything she wants if she can't reach it and she brings us her cups to refill if they are empty because she knows getting water out of the cooler is for Mummy's & Daddy's only!!
- She knows how to open the iPad (doesn't know how to find her apps yet though!), walks around with the remote control like she knows exactly what to do with it, picks up anything that looks remotely like a phone and put it to her ear and say "hello" (... and I mean anything.... battery pack for the laptop, controls for the electric blanket, anything!!), knows that you move the mouse around and then type on the keyboard then move the mouse around again and she just took a CD out of it's packet and tried to put it in the PS3. She was also incredibly cute when she tried to put the CD back in it's envelope... she would open it with her spare hand and buy the time she'd picked up the CD to put it in, it had closed again... she did it 3 times before she gave up and dropped the lot on the ground!!
- Her smile when you go into her room to get her after she has just woken up is priceless
- Watching her open presents is so much fun..... she knows when she is being given a present and that she has to rip the paper to get inside it, but she'll often skip the ripping if there is an open edge on the parcel that she can get into it.
- She loves reading her books and if we leave the bedroom door open, we'll often find her up on her chair reading a book! Either there or hiding in the cupboard, bless her!
- This morning when I told her that we were going to get her ready for swimming, she promptly walked to her room and got her swimming bag out of the cupboard before walking to her dresser and pointed to the drawer with her swimming stuff in it. She knows exactly where she is going when she puts her togs on too!!
- She is learning the concept of fear and danger and she is learning to stop herself if she realises she is putting herself in a dangerous situation. Watching her climb off our bed is really funny.... she can climb off it, but it's a bit high for her still so she has to do it carefully.... this morning, she dangled off the end of the bed for a good minute or 2 before she got the courage to push herself that little bit further to hit the floor.
- She is learning to jump too.... she used to crouch right down and spring up again without actually taking her feet off the ground, but now she will just spring from standing, but left her heels off the ground.
- Her favourite book is a Fisher Price book called "I Love My Family".... it goes through how I love my Mummy, Daddy, Sister, Brother, Grandma, Grandpa and cousin and why. She just loves it and it's really cool, cause it's all relevant... Mummy gives me lots of hugs, Daddy tickles my toes (that's her favourite page and she goes looking for it when you are reading it!) etc. even saying "My cousin swims with me".... which might seem a bit 'yeah, so what', but my sister just got a pool put around the same time that Emma was born!!!
- She loves walking around the shops on her own, but she is very slow (to much to look at!) and is the queen of stopping and standing in the middle of the only path through, usually holding up a whole line of people. She's just lucky that she is cute and gets away with it!! Thankfully anything she takes off the shelves, she will generally put back after having a good look at it.
- She has learnt most of the dances they do on Yo Gabba Gabba. My personal favourite is the "Funky Penguin" where she put her hands on her hips with her arms against her body and moves her bum and hips from side to side. She gets this super cute look on her face when she does it too!!
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