Phia: January 2013

Phia Phia Punkin Pie
22 months old
24lbs
There are so many things I want to write about because, the truth is, I want to remember every single second of these times with you. Every moment is something new and each day is an adventure. You are not always (or even sometimes) easy, but I am always thankful you are mine. You are so funny, and I love that you love to be funny. When you know that you are making us laugh, you get this silly little smile that scrunches up your nose and you talk in this crazy voice that is deeper than normal. Usually you will shrug up your shoulders and cover your mouth too, in some attempt to act shy or coy, but that is just to be silly. You love to make us laugh!

You love your sister. When she is away, you ask for her nonstop. Almost always, she is the first person you ask for as soon as you wake up. When you are scared or nervous, you will repeatedly say her name. When you are happy or excited, she is the first person you want to share it with. You are still mean as can be to her anytime she tries to hug you or love on you, but there is no doubt how you feel about her.

Speaking of your favorite people, you are a MAMA'S GIRL! You want me and only me (and let's be honest here: I LOVE IT.), unless Papa or Gigi are present. Then I'm chopped liver. However, they do let you stay up to ungodly hours and give you Klondike bars, so they are cheating. Really though, isn't that what grandparents are for??

Gigi is edging out Papa in the #1 spot as of late. Lucky for her, if she is present, she has to hold you and feed you and pretty much be your minion. Good thing you are so cute!
Anytime I ask you if you want to go to their house, you immediately stop what you are doing, start heading towards the door and say "Papa "howoose?" "Gigi howoose?" "Puppies?" Its so funny!
Another person you adore is your Granny. You get so excited when I tell you we are going to see her! One of my favorite things is watching you with her. You are normally my wild child, but somehow you instinctively know that you must be gentle with Granny. You will crawl into her lap and simply let her hold you and rock. You will do this for none else. Ever. Unless you are sick or it is bedtime and you are trying to avoid being put in your crib.
Being put into your crib. It is a nightmare. Truly. A. Nightmare. You scream. You cry. Sometimes for up to an hour. It breaks my heart and makes me feel like the most horrible parent ever. Like I don't deserve to be your mom. But we have tried everything else-rocking, sitting beside your crib, patting your back, singing, EVERYTHING. It all makes it worse. You will not cry if we stay there with you doing any one of those things, BUT you have an inhuman ability to keep yourself awake. You will somehow keep yourself awake for as long as we are there with you. I once rocked you for over 2 hours. I fell asleep in the rocker. You did not. I know Daddy has done the same thing multiple times! I have literally fallen asleep in your floor waiting for you to fall asleep. Again, you were still awake. So, Daddy and I have had to resign ourselves to the fact that for now, the only way to get you to sleep is to sing a song or two, peel you off of our bodies, and then put you in your bed with "Nona" (each and every cat is now Jonah, after Gigi's cat) "Mamy" (lamby) and "Hop" (your rabbit) to cry. Its terrible and awful and horrible, but it is the only thing that works. Please feel free to stop torturing us in this way.
*your favorite night night songs are  LaLaLoo and Jesus Loves Me. Jesus Loves Me is my favorite to sing to you because you sing the "yes Jesus loves me" part and it is the cutest thing I have ever heard. Because it is so stinking adorable, I usually end up singing it about ten times just so I can keep listening to your sweet voice.
When you wake up the fun starts! Well, not exactly right when you wake up. That is usually awful too-you are NOT a morning/wake up person. You get that from your daddy. Your sister and I both wake up happy and ready to go. NOT YOU. You are a trickster about it though. You usually wake up and immediately fool us into a false sense of "oh look! its going to be a happy morning!" because right after we get you out of the crib you are happy. How quickly that changes. Normally, around the time that I attempt to change your soaking wet diaper or when the first person mistakenly says "good morning!" you let us know just how NOT good of a morning it is! This can go on anywhere from 10-30 minutes depending on how dedicated you are feeling at the time. Once you finally find your happy self though, it is a blast!

You love to color ("e-o"). Yellow and blue are your favorite colors-in that order, but you know red, green, pink, purple, and black as well.
You love to play play-doh.
You love bath time, but now you insist on "buboos" (bubbles!)
You love to sit in my "lappy" and read books. You love looking at your ABC BABY book and finding the messy baby, the happy baby, the sad baby (you make the cutest sad face when you find this one!), and the baby with the boo-boo. You always give him a kiss. At the end, you love to sing the ABCs. You are getting really good at it too! You can get to about "H" and then you hit the high points-K, P, Q, S(this is your favorite letter and you make me write it over and over and you say "S for Pia!"), T, V, X, and Z. I love it and will gladly sing this with you a thousand times a day.
You still love any books with animals.
You love to give "hi bys" (hi fives) and fist bump (you say "dap" when you do it)
You are constantly trying to wear any pair of shoes that puts your life in danger. i.e.: Daddy's giant shoes, Bella's knee-high boots.

Your favorite game is riding the plasma car around the house with Bella while Mommy hides and randomly jumps out and scares you to death.

You love to eat cereal ("ae-os")
you love to color "e-os"
Your go to meal, guaranteed to please you is "oatmeal rareies" (oatmeal with berries). In fact, for a while you ate so much of this that it turned your poop purple. I mentioned to Daddy that you had blueberry poop, and now everytime I change a stinky diaper you ask me if its boo rareie poop.
Appoos (apples), rapes (grapes), and rareies (berries-especially boo rareies-blueberries) are also among your favorite foods.
You insist on us all holding hands, closing our eyes, and saying "A-MAN" (amen) about 5 or 6 times each meal.
You love the Disney movie Brave. You call it "Rave." You get so excited when you hear the word Brave that we have to be careful saying it around you. You immediately expect to watch the movie when you hear the word.
For Daddy's birthday last year, he got an Optimus Prime transformer. You love him and speak to him every morning.  "Omidis" always gets a hello and sometimes, if he's lucky, a kiss.
Your language skills have taken off in the past month! You are speaking in 3-word sentences now. It happened so quickly it still takes me by surprise sometimes. To be honest, most of the time family and close friends are the only ones who can understand you, but YOU know what you mean and WE know what you mean so it counts!! My favorite thing you are currently saying is "La Lu Mommy!" which is of course is "love you Mommy!" Another favorite is "Mama mo milk!"
Runners up:
"oh baaaba!" (oh baby!) which you always say while spreading your legs really wide, squatting down low, and shaking your booty.
"Hello addie millay"-you started saying this while we were dog sitting Aunt Mary's baby Milly. You say it in your deep, funny voice  to make us all laugh.
"Heeeey Doctor". Hilarious. Every time.
"Boo toe" -Burrr! cold!
"POOOPY!"-you say this when its dark or something scares you. It means Spooky.
"ewwww gos"-EWWW Gross!
You love to yell at your brother and sister to COME HERE RIGHT NOW! I'm not even going to attempt to write that one how you say it. But trust me, its adorable!
You have two tiny toy puppies that you love. "brown puppy white puppy"
You love Tinkerbell or "b-bell" as you like to call her.
You call orange juice "lellow milk"
You like "wawanCHes" (sandwiches), especially cheese and peanut butter
You love to wear your "Man mammies" which are your Superman jammies. This of course makes Daddy very happy. Fun fact #1: you were terrified of these jammies the first time I put them on you. I kept saying "He's a nice man!" so you wouldn't be scared, and for about the next month, any time I would put them on you, you would say "nice!" while shaking your head yes, as if to reassure yourself that he was indeed, nice. Fun fact #2: you sister was in love with these very same jammies when she was your exact age. I have no idea what it is about them that made you both love them, but here we are,  in round 2 of Superman jammie obsession. You want to wear them all the time, day or night. Usually, you insist I put them on over whatever clothes I have dressed you in for the day. This leads to some very "unique" outfits to say the least.
And the biggest/saddest/happiest thing: you are weaned. Yep. The little girl I thought would never give up her "mommy milk" is no longer nursing. I had resigned myself to the fact that you would probably be nursing well into your school aged life. That we would probably be that gross mommy/daughter pair on the cover of Time magazine and have documentaries made about us. But you shocked me when you simply stopped. All on your own. Praise Jesus. I was getting really nervous.
You are such a fun little girl. From the start, you have shaken our world up. You turned everything I thought I knew about being a mommy on its head. Every day with you is different. Every day is exciting. I am so very blessed that God chose me to be your mommy. No matter what kind of day we have had, each night as I hold you snuggled close, I thank God for trusting you with me.