Now that we have an 18-month (almost 19-month) old I figured I should do a little update!

Sailor is FULL of personality these days and is go-go-go! Her hair has stayed blonde white and officially fits in a mini ponytail on the top of her head. She loves to dance- often in circles with her elbows up like wings and always whips out a move if bubble guppies is on (her favorite show). She’s a climber… and will take any opportunity she can to climb ANYTHING including the couch to the window and the dining room chairs to the top of the dining room table! She’s absolutely obsessed with dress up. It’s not too often you find toddlers willing to wear a hat but Sailor prefers a hat on her head at all times of the day… anything she can put on herself she loves (sunglasses, necklaces, shoes, headbands… you name it!) She’s still a big fan of her pacifier but we really only give it to her when she’s upset but if she spots it out of her reach she loses her mind. She’s quite a funny kid though… sometimes she’ll take her pacifier out and put it on the ground and then will lean forward and try and pick it up with no hands and using only her mouth haha! We’re currently in the stage of “do we give her timeouts or do we wait until she’s a little older?” she can definitely test us and about 95% of the time it’s hilarious but we have to keep a straight face. When we ask her to stop doing something and she continues to do it we try and sit her down across from us and hold her hands while we look her in the eye to say “Sailor we do not scream. That hurts mommy’s ears”. As we’re trying to be completely serious and firm with her she’ll look us right in the eyes and say in her little high-pitched voice “Hi!!!” instantly we have turn away as we want to burst out laughing. She loves to feed other people, communicates a lot with her feet (frustration, happiness, excitement… always stomping!), loves to be scared (we always jump out behind walls and she almost always falls over from fear or from laughing haha), has super ticklish legs and still absolutely hates being in her crib (even though she’s a great sleeper). She is the biggest dog lover of all time and waves at every dog she sees (even if it’s on tv). She’s incredibly fearless- which is great but a little concerning when she’s so willing to go to strangers, head right into the lake etc… so our eyes are never off of her! She went from being the least affectionate child to running hugs all day long, the sweetest kisses, and lots of cuddles! She likes to walk backwards, has a favorite chair for drinking her bottle (and will wait patiently in it while I get the bottle ready), learned how to “pound it” (knuckles) from her Aunt Heidi and is starting to sit still/enjoy us reading her books. Sails loves when Andy blows on her face as she’s about to sneeze, absolutely hates when we make a stop while driving but she doesn’t get to get out (like if Andy runs into a gas station while I wait with her in the car), and loves to be outside (water table, cozy-coup, running down hills, swinging…). Sailor falls ALL the time but we just decided early on not to react unless she’s really hurt. This has worked GREAT because she trips, falls off of the couch, runs into things, drops stuff on her feet/head- and she just gets up and moves on like nothing happened – our tough cookie! Sails LOVES swimming but hates being in floaties and just wants to be held. She loves to splash, will let us quick dunk her, and can’t get enough of jumping off the side into our arms! We say “Ready, Set, Go!” but now when we say “Ready..” she will either say “Set” or “Go”! Starting swim lessons this fall 🙂 Just in the last few months she really started loving stuffed animals and has become very attached to her pink bunny, dog, and monkey (and prefers to have all of them in her arms at once)- usually when she picks up a stuffed animal she hugs it between her neck and shoulder and says “awww” as she does it. She’s quite the organizer and everyone who knows her well seems to pick up on this! She likes to line things up, stack, put things away and will remember where things are “supposed to go” like when flower petals fall out of my parents pots she puts them all back haha! She’s a pretty picky eater but some of her favorite things to eat are: peanut butter, waffles/pancakes, raspberries, blueberries, beans, grilled cheese, yogurt, mac and cheese, pizza, oatmeal and goldfish. Sailor isn’t talking A TON but she seems to understand just about everything… If we say “Are you hungry?” she’ll do sign language for milk (which she has always used to sign for food) and will head right towards her highchair! If I say George or Jack (my friends boys) she heads over to a picture of them and points (lately has been making the “J” sound when she sees them!) She certainly knows what nap is (and gets cuddly/sad when we say the word), she knows many of her toys like her baby doll and most of all she knows the dogs (Harley and my parents dogs Tanner and Wilson) often saying “Hi Harley” in a deep voice haha!

Words she can say: hi, dada, bubble, dog, what’s that, whoa, woof woof, ummm (not sure if this counts as a word haha), say say (when referring to herself), Hi Harley, Set/Go, occasionally says baba (for bottle) but usually does sign language for that, sign language for all done, and i’m pretty sure she’s starting to say No and Yep. She babbles ALL day long and sounds like she’s very fluent in whatever language she is speaking we just pretend like we understand and carry on having conversation with her.

She waves all the time (Sometimes at random objects like a fork), gives high fives, enjoys being chased, thinks emptying out every drawer/cabinet in our bathroom is incredibly fun (especially when she can reorganize and put things back the way she wants), wants to always shower with me and has somehow managed to get her dirty diaper off in her crib twice now (i’ll spare the photos). She has THE BEST expressions including a very coy face often when a lot of people are looking at her or she’s trying not to smile. Recently she’s been practicing feeding herself with a fork or spoon and she’s VERY proud of herself! She still sleeps with her arms tucked in under her body and lucky us we almost always get 12 hours of sleep out of her at night! She very independent and wants to run around free- she gets very frustrated when she’s being held and she wants to run around… thankfully she’s learned she has to hold our hands (even though she hates having her hands touched) when we’re on a road, sidewalk, near a pool etc… we introduced coloring to her a few months ago and shes starting to get the hang of it more (training her to be my future assistant ha!) and she thinks its really fun to hang out in harley’s dog kennel or his dog bed (I’m telling ya… she’s a puppy!). She loves carrying bags so if we ever go to the mall and get a small or super lightweight bag we’ll let her carry it (so cute!) but i’m thinking I may need to get her a little jcrew kids purse one of these days! Sailor is very interested in learning what body parts are – she’ll point to my eyes, nose, feet etc… and we’ll tell her what it is but the only one i’ve ever heard her repeat is eyes. She knows where her belly is though which is SO cute because she’s as light as a feather but has this big little belly after she’s finished eating! She’s impossible at restaurants now (what 18 month old CAN sit still at restaurants?!), loves smelling flowers and perfume, gets along great with other kids, and loves going to Starbucks (because I usually buy her a cake pop when I get a coffee). She has so much fun on my parents boat and waddles around in her life jacket, stealing everyones snacks and constantly wanting to sit on my dads lap and drive. She’s a pretty happy kid and really doesn’t get upset often (unless we’re making her sit still- like at a restaurant) and her pediatrician just told us her molars came in (asking us if she’s been super crabby the last few months… we said no not at all!) so we were shocked she was so happy through the “worst” of teething. She still has yet to weigh 20 pounds but did move up a little in her weight percentile (now she’s at 10%) and is hanging out at the 20% for her height- so all around she’s just a peanut!

A few favorite Sailor Stories from the last few months…

There were a ton of cop cars flying by our house with sirens and Sailor ran over to the deck door to watch… then all of a sudden she just started dancing…. TO THE SOUND OF THE SIRENS

Andy and I decided to go on a date night and ended up seeing the movie Neighbors 2. We were laughing at the dumb humor the entire movie until the end when the little girl comes walking into her parents room wearing the same pajamas that we put Sailor in before we left – automatically missed her and wanted to wake her up when we got home (don’t worry we didn’t)

Bought Sails a brand new red bow from this high end baby store. Decided it would be cute on Sailor that night as we went on the boat and out to dinner… I thought I should wait to put it on her until dinner in case it blows off on the boat (which would be a major bummer considering I spent more than I should’ve on a little hair bow)… so as we’re about to dock I take the bow out and put it in Sailor’s hair as we’re about a minute from getting off- what does she do? She whips it out of her hair and throws it into the water. We watched it sink….

My friend Emily was in my car with her son George who is 3 and we hear him talking to Sailor in the back seat… so we both go quiet to hear what he’s saying and that’s when we hear “Hey there little cutie” *heartmelted, George you have full permission to marry her someday!

Once I was driving with Sailor and the ENTIRE car ride (probably a solid 20 minutes) she said “Hi Harley” in her deep voice on repeat… almost like she was practicing and trying to perfect her tone haha!

Typically I work in the basement while Sailor is napping so I’ll bring the baby monitor down with me or else I won’t hear when she gets up. I heard her giggling so I look at the monitor and she’s just sitting in her crib not moving with her blanket over her head. She sat like that for quite some time just laughing to herself- might need to sign her up for the next horror film!

We went out for icecream with my family for my birthday and Sailor decided to climb up on a chair and then just would leap off with her arms out and one leg raised (thankfully my dad was ready to catch her) she did this about 50 times saying “Sep!!!” which i’m now realizing meant “Set” and she had no fear whatsoever- she just believed someone would be there regardless to catch her!

on the 4th of July we went out on the boat and parked at a family friends house. We spent some time on land and let Sailor run around a bit. She climbed up into a chair that was right next to me and Andy and before we even had time to think she had stood up, looked over the back and flipped the chair over. Everyone had a “omg” ‘gasp’ kind of reaction and Andy and I both scrambled to get to her to only see she was laying on her back completely frozen IN A BUSH. We picked her up, put her on her feet and she started running around again like nothing happened. This kid… I don’t understand! haha! We got back in the boat to watch the fireworks and with each BOOM she yelled “SO!!!” (none of us knew what that meant)…

Just recently Andy and I went to dinner and decided Sails would be fine to join us this time. She was really well behaved (unlike the time she knocked an entire lemonade over splashing the couple next to us!) and was happy as can be! The waitress brought her a little container of goldfish and so because she was excited she started to dance in the booth (while eating her goldfish)…. she kept dancing, and dancing, and then all of a sudden poof she’s gone- she slipped off the seat and flew under the booth from her hardcore moves! She ended up with 2 big bruises but was back dancing not long after!

It’s true-the days do feel long… but boy time is flying fast… I can’t believe she’s 1 1/2. We love you our sweet, stubborn, silly Sailsy girl! Life keeps getting better because of you!