Sydney Addison Miller – 19 Months

PLEEEAAAAASE

Sydney has been saying please and thank you lately – not really on her own but when you ask her to.

So today, when she was asking me to pour goldfish into another teacup by holding the cup up to me and grunting, I said, “Sydney, do you want more?  Use your words.”  And then I was pleasantly surprised when, instead of saying “more” she said “pleeeaaase”…

I love how she’s finishing the words in books these days, making up the words to songs and learning how to interact with others to get what she wants without crying or yelling!

Counting to Six

Sydney has been counting a lot lately.  Sometimes backwards from ten – 10, 9 – and it usually stops there. Sometimes forward – 1, 2 – and it usually stops there.  But now we’re getting to 3 and 4 pretty consistently, and on a ride with Daddy and Grandma this past weekend, Sydney counted all the way to six by herself.  I wasn’t there, so we’ll have to take Chris and Kit’s word for it.

It really does amaze me how much she understands, how much she can say, and how much a little girl can fill your heart with so much love…

Favorite Number and Color

If you ask Sydney “How many [fill in whatever we're counting here] are there?” she almost always replies with her favorite number, 9.  Why this is her favorite number, I cannot say.  When we started having squirming issues during diaper changes, I used ask her to give me 10 seconds, counting backward from 10.

The first time I ever heard her say the number 9, I was counting backwards and after I said 10, she said, “Niiiiine.” She can say other numbers now and appears to actually understand the concept of quantity and counting.  For instance, you can ask her how many blankets she’ll point to each and say “one” and then “two”…

9 has been Sydney’s favorite number for a while now.  But favoring the color red is a newer phenomenon.  So now when you ask her what color something is, she almost always answers red first (just like her habit with 9).  But she definitely knows other colors – white and blue being the most consistent.  Red, white and blue – our American girl…

Words, Words and More Words

Want to know what words Sydney is saying lately?  Airplane is currently her favorite, and so Daddy has been taking her to the airport to watch the planes take off and land on weekend mornings while Mommy sleeps in.  I think she must say the words airplane and more at least twenty times a day.

Her list of words is getting longer each day and she’ll now try to repeat just about anything (so we definitely have started to be careful what we say in front of her!)…

The Big Girl’s Bed

Sydney has been struggling to fall asleep on her own since before our Thanksgiving trip.  It all started with her ear infection.  To help her get to sleep, we’d lay down with her in the twin bed and once she fell asleep, we’d move her to the crib.

We started talking to Sydney about officially moving to her Big Girl’s Bed, since that was where she was now falling asleep for her naps and nighttime and since she had been climbing out of her crib more frequently, the last time falling and bruising her knee.  We moved the mattress to the floor, put pillows all around, and started leaving her in the bed for her naps.  Finally, we finished babyproofing her room so it was safe for her to stay in her Big Girl’s Bed at night too.

But the twin bed is awfully small to share with Sydney, which we’re still having to do to get her to sleep, so we bought her a full-sized mattress today.  It shouldn’t be long before we’re able to get rid of the crib.  But how we’re going to get her to go to sleep by herself again is the real question!  That’s a very important next step, since when she wakes in the nights, she cries for us to be with her.

Mommy’s Birthday

The morning of my Birthday started out a bit rough. Sydney had a terrible night’s sleep – I was up with her from 2:30am-6am – and I was extremely tired and frustrated. Then she was cranky and whiny and screaming (a new thing for her) most of the morning.  I swore that on my next Birthday I would be somewhere warm laying in the sun with a book and a babysitter.

But Sydney settled down, Laura came in with the kids to play and have lunch, Chris made me a Birthday cake, the Longhorns won (barely), and Sydney entertained herself for the longest span ever that afternoon (with no nap after I refused to make her cry it out on my Birthday!)…

The highlight of my day was the Happy Birthday video Chris and Sydney made for me.  The video isn’t so clear on Picassa, but you’ll get the gist!   http://picasaweb.google.com/lh/photo/If0Yas3DnBg7e-1hQ4ghoA?authkey=Gv1sRgCMvVmcLa_6GaEg&feat=directlink

More Presents…

Last Christmas, we opened one present a day and Sydney really seemed to like that (although she got almost the same amount of satisfaction opening the wrapping as she did playing with the gift).

So this year, we’d been opening one present a day for about six days before Christmas. We found she really enjoyed the presents she opened that way – playing with them for 30 minutes or more.  On Christmas morning, she liked opening her presents but seemed to be just as happy helping us open ours.  We saved about half of her presents out so we could continue opening them slowly, which we’ve been doing for about a week now.

Chris just said, “Sydney do you want to open this present?”  And she went “Ahh Haaa – Mine” as she ran toward him!  She opened it and then went to the pile and said “MORE!”   If you just read the word present in a book, she gets excited and runs over to where her stash is “hidden” in a big red stocking.  So she seems to get the “present” concept for sure this year…

Christmas Day

Christmas Day started dark and early for Mom and Sydney.  Per her usual lately, she was up at 5am.  So we made some breakfast, set out all the stockings and presents and waited for Daddy to get up.  We enjoyed a leisurely morning, opening presents and taking pictures and snacking on a little junk food from our present piles.  We saved about half of Sydney’s presents for her to open over the coming week or two since she was happy helping us open ours and she had so many things to play with.

When it was time for her nap, we packed up the car and headed to San Antonio to spend the day with the Moorman crew and my parents.  Sydney didn’t fall asleep until we were nearly there, so Chris stayed in the car with her dozing and I popped in to say hi to everyone at Nancy and Jeff’s house.  Laura brought out a plate full of wonderful food to Chris – and he would later say it was the best meal he’d ever eaten in a car.

Sydney finally woke up two hours later and for the rest of the day, we celebrated the wonderful holiday with family.  I couldn’t have asked for a better Christmas…

Christmas with Grandma and Grandpa

Grandma Cookie and Grandpa Ladd volunteered to come to Texas this Christmas, and Sydney got to spend the week before Christmas playing with them.

The weather was beautiful – up in the 70s and sunny two of the days they were here – so that helped us all enjoy Austin even more.

We spent a lot of time just hanging out and catching up and a little time shopping.

Before my parents got on Santa’s Sleigh to head to San Antonio, Chris picked up a delicious Christmas Eve meal at Whole Foods.  We stuffed ourselves silly and went to be early so we’d be ready for Christmas morning.