Marin- 18 Months!

Marin turned a year and a half on Sunday. She's an incredible little miracle that we love and adore, but whew,this age is a challenge. One second she's an angel, the next I'm ready to send her off with the wolves. It's all very normal 18 month old behavior I realize, and it's keeping me on my toes (and sometimes has me standing on my head. With one arm.).

Here's what she's up to at 18 months. The good, the bad and the ugly.

-She wants what she wants and she wants it now: Make that five minutes ago. The tears, oh the tears. Marin has definitely cried more this month than she has the entire 17 months prior. She cries when I have the nerve to add blueberries to her cereal one day, and then cries again the next day when there aren't blueberries in her cereal. She is definitely asserting herself and her independence, and since she's 18 months old, doesn't yet understand patience. Thus, the meltdowns. When she wants something she'll say to me, "MommY! MommY! MommY! MommY! MommY!" I am constantly saying, "What Marin, what do you want? Show me and say please." It works about a third of the time. Sometimes I'll catch her just saying "peease" while rubbing her little chest. Then I have to ask her to point to what it is she wants. It's a multi-stepped communication process that I know is not uncommon, yet I'll admit, frustrating all the same. Poor thing just wants to feel heard and understood.

-She loves to play: Jason has successfully created every game imaginable that can be played with Marin while he lies on the couch. It's Marin's gain though, because she loves the games they play, and jumping and hugging all over her daddy. She giggles her heart out when Jason fake snores and she runs up to him to jump on him as if he were a beanbag chair. She doesn't play this game with me, only Jason. She also loves to play horsey, where she gets on our legs and we bounce her up and down. This is my dad's specialty. She plays pretty well on her own as well, and is learning to share to play with others slowly but surely. She can sometimes get a little territorial over a toy that suddenly looks fun when someone else is playing with it, but she's a quick study and so far, has learned to share well, with little prompting. She will even bring her toys to the others in the room to play with (children and adults).

-Marin is talking a lot: Marin is saying more words than I can remember to write down, and is repeating almost anything we ask her to try to say. Sometimes she'll even come out with a word that we didn't purposely teach her. When we were trying on coats the other day she hugged the coat and beamed up at me, "soft!" She is saying please and thank you very often now, even when we do not ask her to. Almost every time that I hand her something she tells me "taa oo". Marin also has her own little language that Lindsay says sounds like Boo from Monsters Inc, and she's exactly right. It's a quick little jabbery language and I hope I never forget the sound of. It instantly warms my heart. When we saw our dinner prayer, Marin bows her head, jabbers outloud, and then taps her shoulder (her version of the sign of the cross) four times quickly.

-Marin is roll playing a lot: She puts on her own shoes, although not always on the right feet. She likes to also put on our shoes (a sure sign that she wants to go somewhere). She also likes to play cooking, where she gets out the cutting board, and tupperwear and "makes dinner" and serves it to us. Mostly, she likes playing mommy to her baby dolls. She likes to tuck them in, and carry them with her, and take their hats on and off. Sometimes she also drops them on their heads or smothers them in blankets over their faces, so she's not quite ready for her babysitting badge, but she enjoys herself. Marin likes playing dress up with my jewelry and accessories- especially in dressing rooms. She also loves keys, putting them in the locks all over the house while carrying her little purse pretending she's going to the store. She likes to help sweep, and she loves to be the number one fan at Daddy's softball games!

- She's a good eater: Marin will still try about everything and continues to eat a little of what we are having. She drinks very well out of a regular cup and she much prefers normal utensils to baby ones. I think this is because she can stab her food with the real fork better than her baby safe version. If we are there to make sure it doesn't end up in her eye, she often gets a real fork.

- She's busy: Marin likes to run everywhere. She thinks this is a much better way of getting from point a to point b, than walking. She remains a little bit of a neat freak, which is the topic of a little poking fun at mommy, who she definitely inherited this from. If there is a string of thread on her blanket, she very patiently pulls it off. If she drops some food at dinner, she immediately wants to go retrieve it, saying, "uh oh". We have to explain to her that it's okay, we'll clean it up later- eat what is on your plate. When we were on vacation, she combined her busy body and her neat tendencies, when we were all at the pool drinking some adult beverages one night, she walked around collecting our empties and running them to the trash. It's probably not our greatest parenting moment, but she was entertained, we had one less task, and it was funny. Win, win, win.

-She's a lover: Although she is asserting herself more these days, she also still loves to hug and kiss and cuddle. She loves all dogs, especially Norah of course. She loves to give Norah hugs and pets. When she is tired she loves to snuggle up and lay on our shoulder.

Marin continues to love to dance and sing and almost always sighs for more saying, "moor! moor!" when the songs we sing together are over. She loves to do our hand signals and dance moves to the songs we learn together. She's identifying some animal sounds (cow, duck, monkey, dog for starters) and it seems that everyday she says or learns or does something new.
At her 18 month checkup Marin was 24.8 pounds, 32 inches long and assured perfect, which we already knew.