20 Months

Dear Quinn,
You are now twenty months old - a true little kid who is capable of holding entire conversations. We're getting close to abandoning the stroller. Last week Daddy let you walk all the way home from school. He lets you run free as long as you stay on the sidewalk and hold his hand to cross the streets.

You are becoming so independent. You are very opinionated about what you want to wear, and insist on putting on your own shoes. We are not actively training you yet, but we'll put you on the potty when you tell us that you have to go. At school you use the potty at least three times a day. You're doing great! 

Speaking of school, you are absolutely kicking butt!  You know your colors and parts of the body, animals and the sounds they make, you can count to ten, and have even started recognizing letters of the alphabet. I am beginning to suspect that you can actually read.

You still love books. Every night before you go to sleep you pick out a stack of books and sit nicely with me while we read them together. Right now your favorites are your BabyLit books, most of which are counting primers. They're working! 

You are still obsessed with The Sound of Music, and use your allotted screen time to watch clips of it on YouTube. At the moment your favorite song is Sixteen Going on Seventeen. I think your Daddy and I are going to have to sit through a lot of musical theater productions as you grow up.

Other things you love: Vehicles- buses, helicopters, airplanes, trash trucks- you love them all.  Slides: your go-to activity at the park. At home you beg to watch home videos of you sliding. You take your stuffed animals and slide them down the wall saying, "whee!" Bananas: I now have to steer clear of shoppers with bananas in the supermarket because you are not above attacking the bananas of total strangers.

You absolutely love your grandparents. You talk about them all the time, and it's clear that you miss them when you haven't seen them for awhile. We try to spend time with them every weekend. This past weekend you spent Saturday with Mom-Mom and Pop and Sunday with Grammy and Pop-Pop. You came home exhausted, and very well-fed.

I have fallen behind on these letters, so we have many photos to share of your awesome summer so far.

Potty treat - ice cream!

Cupcake at Uncle TJ and Uncle Mikeyface's birthday dinner

Messing with Pop-Pop's herb garden

Kiddie concert at Cianifrani Park

The Paisley Pickles

Enjoying the music

Another ice cream potty reward - it's cold!

Daddy and Pop-Pop harvesting veggies

A sweet pea for me!

Matching mani-pedis with Mommy

Pop-Pop showing me the baby birds

Having chocolate milk for the first time at South Street Diner.
You refused to believe that it wasn't ice cream.

There is sometimes a doggie behind this gate. 

On this day he wasn't there,
so you went over and yelled, "Doggie!!!" until he came out.

 

 

Playing with Pop

Bubbles with Mom-Mom

Cool kid going to school on Sunglasses Day with your baby for Show and Play

 We love you, baby girl!

Quinn's First Beer Week

Dear Quinn,
A few weeks ago, your Daddy and I took you to the Shambles for the Philly Beer Week Beer Garden.  We weren't sure what to expect, but we all had a great time. You weren't shy at all - you went right over to one of the picnic tables and climbed up to have a seat with a group of 20 something girls who made a big fuss over you. Then you heard the music and started dancing in front of the DJ booth.  After that, all the "stroller people" began to congregate near us and you found some of your friends from school.  You spent about an hour running up and down this concrete ramp.  

Thanks for a great night, Quinn!  We love you. 

"Eight!"

215... represent!

Quinn and Daddy

Making friends

Cobblestones are hard to walk on!

Ready for bed!

Memorial Day

Dear Quinn,
Here we are enjoying Memorial Day at Aunt Lauren and Uncle Steve's house in Delaware. You loved spending time at their place - checking out the dog, the cat and the park across the street. Mom-Mom brought a cake and I let you have some. Then Mom-Mom let you have some more. Then Aunt Lauren let you have even more.

The next night we brought you to Mom-Mom and Pop-Daddy's so that Daddy and I could go to an appointment near their house, and again you got to eat the leftover cake.

An entire week has gone by, and you are still talking about it.

Me: "Do you want to go to school and have some breakfast?"
You: "Cake?"

Me: "Quinn, are you ready to sit in your chair and have dinner?"
You: "Cake?"

I can't give you cake as much as you would like it, but you are lucky to have so many people in your life who love to spoil you. 

Patriotic duds courtesy of Grammy

Thanks for sharing your cake, Mom Mom!

Charlie

 

 

 

 

I like the Grateful Dead!

 

Mmm...cake!

 Video bonus:

Nineteen Months!

Dear Quinn,
In recent weeks you have sprouted two new teeth, a variety of new words, (including "yes!" which is a welcome change from "no!") and have learned to recognize numbers and count to ten. Right now you are obsessed with identifying the sounds of the city - always alerting us when you hear a car horn, siren, helicopter, horse or motorcycle. You look out the window and tell us what is going by - bus! car! truck! taxi!

I took you to school on the bus yesterday and all the commuters were smiling and laughing at you. You kept asking, "bus? bus?" and every time it moved you held on to the bar and said, "whoa!!!" You cried when we got to our stop and the bus moved along down the street. I had to bribe you inside with the promise of a banana.

Here are some pictures:

Mother's day came and went, but we had a great time celebrating with Grammy and Mom Mom!

 

daily report

 

Dear Quinn,
You are changing so fast. The posts that I wrote just weeks ago no longer describe you. You are becoming extremely strong-willed, but I'm glad to see that you have a fighting spirit. It means that you will never let anybody push you around. I watch you at school standing your ground with your little friends. You sometimes dominate them, but you also treat them very kindly. 

You have gone from playing independently at their sides to interacting with them, greeting them with hugs and waves, and calling them by their names. You have known them since you were three months old and they are your so-far lifelong friends.  

I'm pleased to see that you are developing your social skills early.  It's one of the things I tell myself when I miss you during the day. It's hard to remember that working is the best thing I can do for our family when I miss you so much. But we know that you are learning at school and that it is expanding your world apart from us. You surprise us all the time by knowing things we didn't teach you ourselves. We're proud of you for being so smart. But there are challenges to you being so advanced... The terrible twos have arrived six months early. 

Like every kid before you, you have declared war on bedtime. Every night is an exhausting battle, and we each have both won and lost. There have been nights when we've skipped the bath, given up on dinner and given in to your tantrums. Your tantrums are legendary, and you seem to find humor in defying us. We know that you have only just begun.  You were such a perfect baby, but it's up to you if you need to be a challenging toddler, a rambunctious kid, or a difficult teenager.  We're in for all of it and we'll love you through everything. 

Walking home from school like a big girl!

Reading with Mommy...

...and all by yourself

Going to school on a rainy morning

Bus!

Captivated by The Sound of Music

Here you are hanging out with my cousins and some of their children a few weeks ago. These are your second cousins and second cousins once removed (I think?) on the Quinn side:

Helping Mommy's cousin Raven eat her hot dog

Quinn and Princess Miranda

A hug for cousin Claire

Playing with the big kids!

PJ and Quinn

18 Month Checkup

Dear Quinn,
Last night you had your 18-month well visit with Dr. Christine. You are now 26 and a half pounds and 32 and a half inches, which puts you in the 90th percentile for weight and the 71st for height. You are such a big girl, and it makes us so happy to see you growing and thriving.

And now I am going to brag a little bit because I am your mother and I can't help it. You noticed a painting of an owl on the wall in the examination room and you immediately pointed to it and said, "Owl! hoot hoot!" This impressed the doctor, who was blown away by all the animal sounds you knew. The other side of the room had some decals of fruits and vegetables, and you began naming them and telling us what color they were. The doctor was charmed when you identified a banana and proclaimed that it was "YELLOW!!!!" but she was not expecting you to say, "Broccoli!"

We then moved on to naming parts of the body, and I was about to show the doctor how you count, but your Daddy had to step in and tell us to stop showing off. Dr. Christine says that you are incredibly smart and that you are "developmentally off the charts."  She also said that based on your vocabulary and cognitive development, you are on par with many four-year-olds. Congratulations, Quinn, you are officially brilliant. 

We could not be more proud of you. You are naturally curious and love to learn. If this continues throughout your life, there is no limit to what you can accomplish. Keep up the good work, and remember that we love you so much! 

Watching "Doe" in the waiting room