Santa Haters

Told you so. Here's Audrey and Parker sitting on Santa's lap. He must have told them Elmo isn't real, or that Pablo (Backyardigans) is CG animation.

18 Months

Audrey had her 18 month appointment with doctor Myers last week and received a clean bill of health. She's an ounce over 23 lbs (still ~25th), and is 34 inches long (~75th +). Dr. Myers even made a point of mentioning her height to Theresa, and that she keeps expecting to see it slow down, given both of our relatively short statures. I imagine that will happen at some point, but for now, we're stuck with the possibility that she'll be over 7 feet tall. Theresa said Audrey couldn't have been more well behaved, and was completely intrigued with whatever Dr. Myers was trying to check out at any given time. Poor thing wouldn't even look away when it came time for her shots...she's just that interested in what's going on.

Dr. Myers was glad to hear some of Audrey's words (she's not a big on-camera talker), and made mention of her attempt to string words together (repeating 'right back' when Dr. Myers had to duck out of the room for a minute). Dr. Myers also seemed surprised that Audrey is able to jump clear off of the ground at her age (which she's been doing for months...current vertical measured at 2-3 inches), and basically informed us that we can expect a number of accidents, similar to the shiner, because she's way more physically ahead of the game for her age than she is mentally. Basically, she's great at sprinting, jumping, climbing, but not so aware of when it might be a terrible idea to do those things. So we'll see how it goes.

I've been a little remiss about posting things related to our every day lives rather than events and occurrences. But it's sometimes hard to step back and figure out what's 'news' when you're living it every day. But, in an effort to make up for that a little bit, here are some other points of interest: We just took her pacifier away last week (which she only used to sleep with anyway). She put up a little bit of a fight, especially at naptime, but now she seems to be back to her old sleeping habits. Of course we replaced it with a taggie towel/blanket thing that Grammy gave her, so we'll have to start the whole process over in however many years when it's time to take that away. She loves Elmo ("Melmo"), and would wear her Elmo shirt every day if we would let her, and proudly points to him on her chest every time she has it on. She still loves her vegetables, but also has a weakness for pizza ("pu-pa"). She refused ice cream the other night, so she might have avoided inheriting her father's sweet tooth. She loves trucks and buses (any large automotive, really) and stands at the front door to say hi to the garbage men every Friday, who wave back to her. She loves to be outside, and doesn't seem to care when it's only 30 degrees. And she always makes sure she and everyone else has on their hat ('at') beforehand. She loves books, but can't wait to skip to the end (which frustrates her parents). She also likes to draw, but almost refuses to do so on paper, which is the only place she's supposed to do it. And she knows that, but just smiles and blatantly disregards us while we try to act stern (which I secretly think is cute. For now.) She always has to be a part of whatever is going on in the kitchen, especially on the counters, so each of us is getting pretty good at making dinner one armed. She loves to throw things in the trash, sweep the floor, and put away the dishes. She has shown almost no interest in using the potty since we bought her one. The first thing she does after she wakes up in the morning is to turn on the Xmas tree lights. She really seems to like Santa, but is scared to death of him when it comes time to sit on his lap (we tried 3 times).

Anyway, that's all I can come up with off of the top of my head. We'll do our best to keep up with the little things in the future...

Dancin' Machine

When I got home from work the other night, Audrey was doing this crazy dance for about the next fifteen minutes. The video doesn't nearly represent it well enough - I think she was tiring by this point - besides, we've noticed that she gets a little camera shy when she knows she's in the spotlight. To explain, it was basically a cross between high knees/running in place, torso-twisting, and arm flapping (picture Ed Grimley, Martin Short's SNL character). And it was hysterical. Nevertheless, here's a little bit of semi-dancing action for your viewing pleasure. Forgive the video if it's a little dark, but for whatever reason it always ends up uploading a few shades darker than it actually is on the camera.

Editor's note: although you wouldn't know it by watching, she really does know where her hips and her nose are, she's just distracted. Honest. :-)

Shiner

Last week Hilda called Theresa at work to tell her that Audrey had a little accident...apparently she fell on the back patio and landed almost directly on her face. Theresa and I were worried that her whole face would be brushburned from the fall, but luckily it was just a bruise. A relatively big one though. So, here's Audrey's first shiner...and hopefully the last.

Gymnastics

Because of her constantly active nature, Theresa thought it would be a good idea to sign Audrey up for a gymnastics class once a week. Turns out she loves the classes, and even though she was reluctant to follow instruction during her first class (i.e. station to station), she's definitely getting the hang of it. The instructor told Theresa last week that Audrey "has no fear", which we've been aware of for quite some time now, but apparently is a good thing in the world of gymnastics. Most of the stuff she's doing is just climbing and tumbling, but it certainly looks like a lot of fun.

Leaves

We spent last Sunday raking leaves and generally cleaning up the yard (I said it was a busy few days). Audrey was a great help, although she made it a little difficult to focus on raking for too long (climbing the stairs, etc.). Overall it was a pretty good day...she was introduced to a giant black fuzzy caterpillar (which she tried to stomp on), helped to rake a few leaves, jumped in a few leaf piles, and got to scamper around for most of the day. These 65 degree late November days are really brutal. Here's some of the action...

Audrey 1, FSU 0

While Theresa took a trip to target Friday morning, I was able to seize one of the very few opportunities I've had so far in Audrey's life to dress her and take full advantage. This was the first time we've had her in the proper attire for gameday (courtesy of Aunt Nikki), and the result couldn't have worked out any better. She seems to like alligators, she's done the 'chomp' once or twice, and even signaled a couple of touchdowns on Saturday....all good signs. We'll try to make it two for two this Saturday afternoon...maybe I'll try to teach her to say "Tebow" this week.