The Blessing We Call Bella: September 2010

I can't believe my Bella girl is approaching two years old. It just truly amazes me. She truly amazes me. Most of my blogs have highlighted an event so today I just wanted to write about my wonderful little girl. I thought that since the main reason I blog is for it all to be bound into book for her, I thought she'd love to hear about herself as a 22-month old.

One of the things I have always said to Bella was/is, "Are you momma's baby?" She always has said yes with a big smile and nod, but now she crawls up in my lap and says, "Mommy's baby, baby." I love it. The thing is, though, I can barely cradle her anymore. She's so big. She's not really a baby, she's a toddler. She's growing up too too fast. I know she will always be my baby, but geeeez......where has the time gone?

So let's start with SILLY.....Bella's middle name should be Silly. In fact, in my mind, it seems like if she has gone a certain amount of time without laughing, she'll just get up and start doing something to make herself or us laugh. This could be running around the house, throwing herself on the floor, or burying her face in pillows. It might be throwing something or splashing herself in the bath. Lots of time she enjoys putting pants on her head and walking around...especially if the pants have been pulled over her eyes so she can't see. Sometimes, she'll even close her eyes while running around the house to make it more fun. On top of that,she always wants to be chased. If it is fun and silly, she wants to be involved. She's just plain SILLY.

No, it's not Mary or a Middle Eastern headdress, just Bella putting her pants on her head again.

Just giggling over nothing.

SPORTY.......Bella's first word was "Ball". She loves them...all colors....all sizes.....she loves to kick them, throw them, bounce them, lay on them and run with them. She is very active. She loves to run around the house and the backyard. She especially loves running in stores. She likes to be chased. Plus, the girl LOVES to jump and tumble. I'm on the waiting list for a gymnastics class. I am convinced she will be in sports of some kind on top of modeling, dancing, drawing, and acting. Ha-ha.

Her first time holding the bat. She swang a bit early, but had good form. My future softballer!

From softball to soccer, just like momma.

SAUCY- Okay, so we discovered the girl loves SAUCE. This was discovered when we introduced her to hummous. She dipped the carrots in and kept licking the hummous off. Then, she just forgot about the carrots and tried to grab some hummous with her hands and lick it off with her mouth. Following this incident came cucumbers with Italian dressing which is her favorite. I have to literally grab the bowl at the end to prevent her from drinking the dressing. Ranch is another favorite with carrots. And finally, she likes a few fries with her ketchup. Sometimes I think....just give her some sauce and a spoon, but somehow I know that just isn't healthy, so I continue to humor her with adding something to dip in the sauce.

Getting every last bit of ranch.

SASSY...What can I say? The girl has gotten a little bit sassy these days. Lord, I hope it's just the terrible two's coming a little early and not foreshadowing the teenage years. There is no doubt that she will be a headstrong, independent woman in the future, but I hope this little "sassy-ness" is a phase. At almost-two however, the dreaded "no" word is coming out a bit more than I had hoped. And boy does she have a great scowl to go with it. She DEFINITELY knows exactly what she wants and she'll let you know. Now that she has realized that she has all of these emotions, I have been trying to teach her the appropriate ways to express them. Oh, and how is that going, you might ask? Uh, she's kinda a slow learner on this topic. UGH! But mommy will overcome!

Just a bit of a "Sassy Bella look"

SMART....So, I guess the general rule seems to be that you are allowed to brag on blogs. That's normally what I read. Most people usually tell me one and/or two things about Bella when they meet her----She's breathtakingly beautiful and that she's smart. Now, of course I think she is both because I am her mom, but even strangers come up to us in droves saying these things about her so maybe they have a point. To be honest, though, seriously, I think she is pretty average for her age because this is the age where things start really happening. Her vocab has skyrocketed and grows daily. It blows my mind how many words she can say. But, it further blows my mind how much she UNDERSTANDS. I can pretty much tell her to go get me anything and she knows exactly where and what I am talking about. She's known all of her colors for 4 months now, and now knows the shapes, the numbers to ten, some of the ABC's, most animals and much more than I could ever type. She'll put them all together now to describe things...yellow sun circle, etc. I now teach her more complex colors...this week's lessons were peach, periwinkle ("peripinkle"), magenta, turquoise, lime green and silver.

The big breakthroughs are "Please", "Thank you", "Bless You" "Ilove you", "Your welcome" and "I sorry", which are the most important in our family. Some of my favorites are, " _____, are you?" when looking for something or someone. Another favorite......because she has read Brown Bear, Brown Bear so many times is that she will be playing with something and use that item at the beginning of the ryhme like "Spoon, spoon, what do you see?" or "Crayon, crayon, what do you see?" It is the cutest.

Which brings me to how smart she is when reading. She will read aloud 10 books in a row (in her jibberish language). But she does it with so much enthusiasm and proper sentence fluctuation. Sometimes I will be doing something and I will hear her say these familiar words in between the jibberish and I will go over to the book and sure enough she is saying what is on the pictures. I love how much she loves books.

Sweet- She's the sweetest. She shares everything with us (and sometimes other kids, ha!). Hugs and kisses, says I love you and has a smile that just melts my heart. She takes turns, loves on her stuffed animals and has a geniune big heart. I just love her to bits.

Interesting Things about Bella-

1. She says goodbye to lots of objects as we leave rooms- "Goodbye lights" "Goodbye TV"

2. When relaxing or going to sleep, she has to have something soft stroking the tip of her nose like her blanket, stuffed animal (especially tails of stuffed animals) and my hair.

3. She loves putting on lotion. She calls it la-shone.

4. She loves shoes, socks and clothes and will spend a half hour putting them on and taking them off.

5. She lines everything up meticulously.

6. She will empty things out of containers and load them up again over and over and over for like an hour FOR FUN.

7. She loves to unpack groceries.

8. She has an obsession with brushing her teeth (or sucking on the toothbrush).

9. She usually won't let either of us feed her anymore. If we help her scrape something out of the bowl, we have to put the spoon or fork down and let her pick it up before she will eat it.

10. She colors every single day morning and night.

11. Her two favorite songs to sing right now are Twinkle Twinkle and ABCs.

Recent Bella Stories-

1. So, we are in Church last week getting ready to go into final prayer. Bella is starting to get antsy so I give her one of her favorite books, Dr. Suess ABC. When she gets it she yells, ABC! and starts reading it in a very high voice. I get her to pipe down right as the church was getting quite for prayer. Phew! Well, the church is silent and the Pastor is leading prayer when Bella starts belting out the ABCs. So, I of course, try to shush her and she says, NO! in her awesome toddlerness. There is no time to duck out so I let her finish and so does the prayer. As soon as we say "amen" everyone turns to us and says how cute her antics were. (like she needs encouragement). Then, to top it off, we go to the store afterwards, and people we don't even know start coming up to us saying, "Oh, you're the one who was just singing the ABC's it was so cute!" My, oh, my!

2. I took Bella shopping to H&M last weekend just to grab a few pairs of essentials like leggings and long sleeve shirts to help stretch her summer wardrobe. Well, she walks in like she's ready to shop and starts perusing the racks. When I grab what I need and head to pay, she appears from a rack of clothes with a purple and pink swirly summer dress saying "This pretty". I say, "Yes, it is, baby." She is holding it up to chin like a true pro. It was hilarious. She was not taking no for an answer so I grabbed it and acted like I was buying it. Meanwhile, she disappeared behind the rack again. This time she came back with a very similiar dress WITH A MATCHING PURPLE BRACELET. I was flabbergasted! Have I already created a fashion diva? Oh, Lord help me! From now on, I vow to dress her in mismatched outfits and go easy on the bow accessories. Ha-ha

Thank you Lord for blessing us with the most amazing daughter who fills our life with adventure and pure joy.