Eighteen months old!

Sasha turned 18 months old Thursday. She has been changing so much every day. She Still wants me to be the one holding her most of the time, but usually she is off doing something with Brayden and Brookelyn. Last Friday she and I were about to leave the house to go get the other two from school when she looked at me and said, "Out." I repeated it to her and she said it again. I thought she must mean outside so I stood up. She had never said it before and I wanted to see if she knew what, "out," meant. As soon as I stood up she ran over to the back door, pointed to the door handle and said,"out," again. I was really surprised since I didn't know she knew that word. We played outside for a few minutes and then when we came inside she ran into the kitchen and said, "jui." I thought she must mean juice, but since I rarely give her juice, I asked her if she wanted some water. She shook her head and said, "jui," again. I opened the refrigerator door and she pointed to the container of juice and said it again. By this time I am pretty shocked that my baby is suddenly talking after only having said a few words before. I gave her some juice and she drank it and said, "more." She had created her own sign for more that she usually uses and sometimes she will say, "moe," when she signs it. But when she said it then, she didn't attempt to sign and clearly said, "more." I, of course, was praising her for each word she used and letting her know I understood her. Then we went to get into the car. She ran up to the side of the car where her car seat is and touched the door and said, "hot" and then quickly said, "ouch" right afterwards. I couldn't believe it! She hardly talks and then suddenly says so many words in one afternoon! The funny thing is then she spent the entire trip to get the kids yelling "juice" or "more." Just a couple of days ago she looked at me and pointed upstairs and said, "Colco?" I said, "Colton?" and she nodded, so we went looking for her brother. When we found him, I asked her to say his name and she said, "Colco" and smiled. It was very sweet since he is so loving and sweet to her all of the time.
She now says-more, juice, momma, dadda, more, out, map (Dora), backpack (Dora), sticker, hot, ouch, and Dinder (for one of her teachers, Jinger) she will repeat words we say now and thinks it's funny
She has just grown out of her 6-12 month clothes and 12 month clothes. She will fit into 12-18 month shirts, but the pants that size are way too big for her. I am hoping she will fit into them by the time it gets cold. I am hoping it gets somewhat cold here this winter since I bought a lot of cute cold weather outfits. It is still hot here, too hot to wear long pants yet. I like living in Southern California, but you really need to watch to see what the weather is like. There are many days in the winter months that start out chilly and warm up to the high 80s within a couple of hours. I have gone to the park with my kids dressed in pants, long sleeved shirts and jackets and we have had to go home and change into shorts. Sounds great and is great, unless you are not prepared for it. And I like buying a new fall wardrobe. It's something we did as kids growing up in the midwest. Anyway...
Sasha's favorite toys are a little pink stuffed dog and a big pink and white dog. The larger one is somewhere between a blanket and a stuffed animal. She sleeps with both and rushes to grab them when I get her out of bed in the morning so she can carry them around with her. I usually let her keep them for a little while in the morning and then take them when she isn't looking and put them back in her crib. When we lay on the couch for a little while in the morning she likes to hold them against her face. Very sweet. Otherwise she would bring them everywhere and drag them behind her. She doesn't go looking for them, she seems to forget about them if she doesn't see them. Also, the little dog is actually Brookelyn's so if she sees Sasha with it she gets upset. Sasha also likes playing with balls. She likes us to sit on the floor and roll a ball back and forth between us. She is really good at throwing or rolling it in the right direction already. She likes to play with little cars too and will push them around making little engine sounds or wants us to roll the car back and forth between us. She also likes to play on Brayden's drum set when we are in the garage. She plays whatever the bigger kids are playing and loves climbing at the playground. We have to really watch her when we are at any playground, because she has absolutely no fear and will climb anything.
She eats whatever we eat, just cut up into small pieces. She is very opinionated when it comes to food. If she doesn't want it she will shake her head and then knock the plate off of the table. Not cute. She will ask for cheese if Brookelyn has some, but will never eat it. Within minutes of giving it to her she will be smashing it under her foot on the floor or on her chair. If we don't give it to her she will cry and have a mini tantrum. So I usually give it to her and then take it off the table a minute later. With all three so little, I am more about getting them all fed with us all being as calm as we can. All she knows is that she wants whatever Brookelyn and Brayden have.

Brookelyn is doing really well. She will be turning three at the end of November. She healed very quickly after her surgery. She LOVED getting a band aid put on three times a day. We had bought a lot of Dora and Hello Kitty band aids and she got to choose a new one each time. After a few days, Sasha started wanting a band aid over her eyebrow too and Brookelyn was very generous letting her have hers. We put antibacterial ointment on it several times a day for the first two weeks and now we just have to put a new one on every day. She is supposed to keep a band aid on for a month and then we will just make sure we put sunscreen on it for a long time. She is a funny little girl. She loves school and happily goes and does whatever. She eats most things and is not fussy about it. She likes to pretend she is Dora. She will carry her backpack around and put things in, take them out and reorganize them. She loves carrying her little purses around, wearing her tutu and playing with her dolls and stuffed animals. She LOVES PINK. Sometimes I can get her to wear something that is not pink if it has purple in it, but otherwise it really has to be PINK. She can only drink things if they are in a pink cup. It would drive me crazy if I didn't understand that she really needs things to be pink while she is in this pink phase. Since there are plenty of pink clothes and pink things for kids, I can handle a pink phase.
Brookelyn was in speech for several months because I noticed she wasn't talking at the appropriate time. She loved going to speech class, where it was her and her teacher for an hour a week. We stopped a few months after Sasha came home. The new teacher she was assigned kept having scheduling issues and at the same time I noticed Brookelyn's speech had improved enough that I didn't think she needed to see anyone any more. She now has a great vocabulary and is very expressive. She is pretty calm as long as she is wearing pink, given a pink cup, and no one takes her things. If she is given a drink out of a cup that isn't pink, or someone else uses her pink cup---wow! That girl can scream. Not a mean scream, but a devastated scream. She will fall to the floor in a heap. There are a few other things that make her upset. Brayden likes to torture her and he knows what bothers her. He will say things like, "I'm bigger than you, Brookelyn, you are a baby, I'm faster, I did it faster than you..." and again she is a screaming heap on the floor. She also prefers me to anyone else for most things. Getting her out of bed in the morning, going with her to the bathroom (she likes the company since then it is her, me, and Sasha), getting her out of her car seat after school, reading her books and putting her to bed at night and getting her water or talking to her when she wakes up at night. Ray and other people are fine for some things, but mostly it is me.
She really likes when she and Sasha wear matching outfits. She is very sweet with Sasha and they have a lot of fun together. If it is just the two of them playing, eating or taking a bath, there is a lot of giggling and fun. She is always very sweet. If Brayden is around, things are much wilder. He is always running, bouncing, splashing, squawking...whatever is loud and chaotic. And both girls follow his example. Sasha will do silly things like slash in the tub or fall down in the tub if it will make him laugh. It gets wilder and wilder. We have started seperating the kids a little to calm things down sometimes in the evening. I will give the girls a bath and put them to bed and Ray will be in charge of Brayden.

Brayden has started to sound out words lately. It started about a month ago. I think Ray asked him to sound out a word from a book he was reading to Brayden. He was shocked that Brayden was able to do it. Since Ray and I made a big deal about it Brayden started being really interested in it at school. He is a bright little guy and is doing a great job. He is a loud, active, smart, active, cute, active, funny...boy. He is a mass of energy and is very fun to be around if that energy is channeled. He loves all sports and is naturally a good athlete. He is actually good at everything, as long as he is interested in doing it. There are a lot of times throughout the day where is is mainly interested in teasing Brookelyn, making irritating noises, getting the girls to do something wrong....and he is hard to redirect. Once he gets something in his head, it is hard to change his mind. Sounds a little like ADHD, but he actually focuses really well if he is in the right environment with firm rules. He does great at school. But at home, he knows we are busy and takes advantage of it. He is fine if he has one on one attention or we are all playing or doing something together. The hardest time is when I am making dinner. The kids are tired and want my attention and I need to cook so we can all eat. The juggle between keeping them calm and getting anything done is exhausting on many days. For me and every mother out there. But Brayden is so fun to be with in many ways. He is very smart and remembers everything. He has an amazing memory and notices the smallest details. There is no down time with him because he is always asking questions like, "Can you fall off of the moon?" or "Are those clouds part of the solar system?" Not questions you want to answer when you are tired. He will be five in February, so he is too old to distract when he wants something. Sasha got a hair cut on Monday to fix a bad haircut she got a couple days before that. Brayden decided he wanted a haircut too and talked about it constantly. Ray usually cuts his hair (buzzes it) at home but Brayden wanted to go get it cut by someone else. I asked if it was so he could get a sucker, but it was about the hair cut. I had Colton sit in the car while the girls napped in their car seats and I brought Brayden in for a hair cut. It actually took a long time for a boy's hair cut and he loved it. He happily sat still for the fifteen minutes it took. When we got home he went and took a shower and got into new clothes and hasn't brought up the subject again. He loves when he has one on one time with either of us, but he has really wanted to be with Ray lately. Golfing, playing some sport in the back yard, or riding bikes. He wants me when he is tired or upset or to be quiet with. He can be very sweet and calm when I read to him or we have movie night together. Every Saturday night he and I sit down and watch a movie together after the girls go to bed. We have been doing it a long time and it is really fun for both of us.
The other day something happened that is a perfect example of Brayden. Ray was painting the upstairs bathroom. We had had some remodling done month ago and were finally getting around to finishing it. Brayden and Brookelyn both wanted to "help" so I stripped them down thier underwear. I was folding laundry in our bedroom when I heard Brayden say to Brookelyn, "We can say potty words if we want because we are in the bathroom. Mommy says we can say them if we are in the bathroom." I have definitely told him he can only say potty words if he is in the bathroom. I could totally imagine him smiing with a little glint in his eye when he realized the game they could play. So they sat in there saying all of the potty words he could thing of. He owuld say them and Brookelyn would repeat whatever he said. Ray tried to stop them, but I said we had to let them since they were technically following the rules. I think they said potty words in as many ways as Brayden could think of until his mouth was tired. It is so Brayden to find a loophole and run with it.