Where in the world did the time go? My mom wrote a social networking site comment on a photo of Allie today about how she’s 19 months old today, and I had to double-check the calendar. Didn’t I JUST post about her 18-month birthday? Jeesh. Today, I packed up all her 18-month clothes and onesies (too short on torso length) and left her with only 24-month or 2T clothes in her dresser.

Loves:
* Kids. She still calls them “baby.” She’ll go up to any kid at the playground and wave and affectionately touch their hand. I’ve noticed that maybe 10% of the kids welcome this contact. The other 90% glare at her and move away, or start hovering over their toys yelling “No!” at her before she even reaches them.
* Parks and playgrounds. New this month: She’ll have a fit and cry, sometimes throwing herself on the ground, when it’s time to leave.



* Music. Listening to it, singing it (she recognizes songs that I’m mindlessly humming and will sing out the next line or identify a character that sings it, and she’s surprisingly accurate on her tones and pitch), dancing to it, playing it on piano or guitar. Last weekend, she got to play with an Allie’s sized stringed instrument.

* New words and characters. This morning she surprised me by being able to identify and say “Big Bird,” “Ernie,” “Monster” (Cookie Monster), “Tigger,” and last week, “Eeyore.” She’s even memorized the order of some of the alphabet and numbers in English and Mandarin. I think it’s just phonetic to her, she doesn’t know “five” is a number or how many that really is, for instance.
* Trucks. I don’t get it. But she’ll excitedly point out pickup trucks (“Duck!”, as distinguished from actual quacking ducks, which she calls “duckies”) and dumpster trucks (“Beeeg duck!”).
* Doing things herself. If I don’t give her the spoon quickly enough, or I offer unwanted help as she climbs up steps or playground ladders, she’ll insist in a big rush, “Me me me! Me me me!”

Dislikes:
* Eating the same veggie too many times in a row. She’ll either refuse it or push it out of her mouth with her tongue. Very frustrating. New thing this month: flinging unwanted food onto the floor. This drives Mr. W crazy.
* Being told what to do. She’ll resist it just to resist it and practically have a tantrum over it. Changing a diaper when she didn’t first announce “poo” has once again become a struggle. Same with leaving a place, even if that place is home. Leaving a playground is the worst. “More park! More park!” she’ll protest shortly before whine-crying and then resisting going into the car and carseat.
* Mealtimes. Or so it seems. At least half the time she’s fine, but we’re not used to her being picky so it’s nerve wracking coming up with something she’ll eat. We’re letting her go hungry if she’s very resistant, other than dig around trying to find something, anything, that she actually wants to eat, because we don’t want to train her into thinking she has her own short order cook. This is what the meal is, and if she doesn’t want to finish the main course, she can fill up on the vegetables. IF she won’t, she still has fruit for dessert. She’ll always eat SOMEthing, but sometimes just not much of it without some effort on our parts to distract her so she doesn’t spit it out, or to come up with a game. Last night’s game which worked very well was “Look at Allie.” Her baby doll which she totes around was placed at the dinner table facing her, also wearing a bib. We’d pretend to feed something to the doll, praise baby for eating well, and then offer it to Allie. And then we’ll narrate what Allie’s eating to the baby, as if bragging about it. “Look, baby, Allie’s eating a carrot! Look, baby, Allie’s eating a noodle! Look, baby, Allie’s eating an eggplant!” Allie would lift up her food in the air toward the doll and say, “Look baby!” before stuffing it in her mouth. She cleaned her bowls and plates, and at the end, she lifted her empty bowl to show baby, saying proudly, “Look baby! Nothing! Nothing!” Goes to show, peer pressure starts at a very young age. =P I also took a tip from college roommie Diana and started putting missing nutrients (spinach, kale, other raw veggies and fruits) into a smoothie for Allie if we feel she didn’t have enough nutrients throughout the day.
* Not having mommy. I’ve started driving to reduce the road rage stress for Mr. W, and when we’re coming back from my parents’ house or Disneyland shortly before her nap and she’s tired, she will throw a fit that I’m not there to offer her comfort. Specifically, she wants to suck her thumb and run her fingers through my hair. Dada’s short hair and arm hairs are poor and unacceptable substitutes. Today, she cried “Mama” almost the entire way home from Disneyland. I also feel like we have to re-sleep-train her because a little separation anxiety kicks in at nap/bedtime when I put her in her crib. She only protest-cries for a minute or less, tho, because we’ve always been consistent in not going in there to acknowledge her protest cries.

This morning we went to Disneyland for the last Sunday morning before our annual passes are blocked out for the summer. While I was changing her first thing this morning, I said, “Guess where we’re going today!” She guessed, “Mimi?” and got it right. She’s now able to express her will and get more meaning out of her trips to Disneyland, so it’s pretty different from the first times we would take her when we first got annual passes. Now we can ask her if she wants to go on the train (which she always waves to), or ride the flying Dumbos, and she’ll nod and say “Yah.” She loves the rides and usually will start to protest with “More! More!” when it’s time to get off. She also recognizes more characters now and with her familiarity, she’s less shy, so we make sure to visit Toon Town so she can greet Minnie, Mickey (both “Mimi” to her), Donald, Goofy, Pluto, and we try to stop by the Pooh ride so she can see Pooh, Tigger, and Eeyore.

I should make more of an effort to wear makeup. Oh, well.

Just for fun, here’s her doing somersaults at the park a couple of weeks ago.



And here’s Allie and Dada playing follow-the-leader. Guess who the leader is.


Videos from my parents.