she's not such a baby anymore

This post was mostly written last Friday.

Our "baby" is growing up. She seems to be getting big so fast. She's 19 months now and acting more like a 2 year old. Her vocabulary is very quickly expanding. She is picking up words left and right. It's so crazy for us because Nathan didn't say much until he was 2.5 and Caroline started when she was about 22 months. Sara has been picking up words for months now and, in the last week, she has started combining words. It's so neat to hear her start to be able to put words together to communicate what she wants. Here are a few examples:

see...Mommy? - she wanted to know if I saw another airplane
please...door - asking Caroline to open the door
color...me - pointing to the crayon on the high chair where she had been coloring earlier

She also jabbers on in "sentences" - something the other two never did. It's really cute. It's funny how you can tell that she thinks she's saying something. She repeats words that we say regularly. For example, just a minute ago she found her ball and I said "you found your ball" and she said "found".

Since Sara was about 15 months old, she has been using the potty. I've taken her when she's asked and she pretty much always goes. At first she pooped in the potty, but more recently she has only peed. I've been thinking for a while that I needed to get on to "real" potty training while she's interested in going. But we've just had a lot going on so I wasn't ready to commit. Today, though, she is wearing underwear - the thicker training pants kind. I couldn't find our vinyl ones to go over them, however. A little while ago she came to the door (of the room where Nathan and I were doing school work) and called me. I told her to go back and play. Mistake. A little bit after that, Caroline told me that Sara was in the bathroom. I headed that way to take advantage of the opportunity to take her. Too late. She had pooped in her underwear - nasty poop - and it had come out the back. She had found it with her hand and had wiped it on her shirt to get it off. Yuck! Yuck! Yuck! There was no saving it. I had to just put her straight in the tub. I don't mind the pee pee messes so much, but poop in underwear is just nasty. I think Sara agreed. Maybe next time she'll think to head to the potty. I hope. (She decided this weekend that she didn't want undies. We'll try again when we have at least a week to stay home...mostly.)

Sara loves to play with Nathan and Caroline. She thinks she's as big as they are and can do everything that they do. She enjoys playing with her babies and is often a little Mama. She pushes them around in strollers and feeds them and covers them with blankets to sleep. Her favorites are still the two hard headed babies. They are the ones that she sleeps with and wants to play with most often. Nevermind that they were both Caroline's...they aren't anymore. She also has a favorite ball. It's one that my grandmother bought her at Cracker Barrel. It's on of the bumpy rubber-ish balls. But this one is special. It lights up when it bounces. Sara is good with puzzles. She occasionally works on the chunky puzzles that we have around. She always knows where the pieces go, but she sometimes has trouble getting them lined up quite right.

Sara knows one color - purple. She makes one animal sound - moo. She loves doggies. She is very strong-willed - that means lots of discipline for blatant disobedience. She screams...loud...like a girl. She went through a biting phase - it was her retaliation for the other two doing something she didn't like. She loves to cuddle - with her head on your shoulder. The end.