Rylee - 18 Months Old

Last Thursday, Rylee turned 18 months old. I can't believe it's already been a year and a half since I first laid eyes on her and held her in my arms. Time sure does fly by.
This Thursday (two days ago), I took her to her pediatrician for her 18-month check-up. Rylee is starting to learn what it means to go to the doctor, in the way of associating it with getting shots, so I was anxious to see how she would do yesterday, because I knew she would be getting more vaccinations. Overall, the appointment went very well. She now weighs 23.6 pounds, putting her in the 35th percentile of growth among other children her age, and she is 33 1/4 inches long, which puts her in the 85th percentile on that scale. She's tall and lean like her daddy. We had a nice little visit with Dr. Trumbull. He said she looks great, and he is very pleased with how she seems to be doing. He's excited to hear how she'll take to being a big sister once Baby Ryan is born. After we finished talking with him, he sent a nurse in to give Rylee a shot. Thankfully, she only had to get one, so it wasn't too bad. Of course she cried, but I was able to calm her down almost immediately after I picked her up from the table, so I think she did much better yesterday than she did at her last visit when she had to get two or three shots. The nurse gave her a little pink bracelet that has a fruity fragrance to it, so Rylee kept holding it under her nose to smell it. Silly girl. So anyway, we survived the appointment, and we don't have to take her back until she's 2 years old for her next check-up.
While I'm here updating about her doctor appointment yesterday, I figured I'd update on how she's doing on a daily basis as well. Here's what Rylee is up to these days:
- She eats a pack of instant oatmeal and a cup of yogurt for breakfast pretty much every morning (sometimes she doesn't quite finish all of it for breakfast, so I'll feed her the rest of it for snack later in the day).
- She has recently started going through a stripping phase... every now and then, she will take her pants and/or her shirt off. Lord, help us.
- She is already beginning to show signs of being ready to start potty-training. Sometimes, she will start to pull her pants down and say "Pee!", and when we ask her if she needs to go potty, she will head to the bathroom. When we try to actually sit her on the toilet, though, she gets scared and won't do anything. She's supposed to be getting her own little potty for Christmas, though, so we might be working on potty-training sooner than I expected we would be. (I'm not going to force it on her, though. I know she's still very young, so for a little while at least, I'll just work with her on it when she shows the initial interest in it.)
- She has 12 teeth now.
- She loves to listen to music and dance. When we put worship music on, though, she will raise her hands up and "worship". I keep trying to get it on video, but so far, I haven't been able to get a very good one. It is so precious.
- She LOVES babies. I'm hoping this fascination with them will help her adjust to her baby brother when he arrives any day now.
- She has a tendency to walk on her toes.
- We can't get her to sit still and watch a Disney movie or anything animated like that with us, but she loves watching game shows. Her favorites right now are "Wheel of Fortune", "Family Feud", "Lingo", and "Deal or No Deal".
- She has recently come into a "little helper" phase, which I'm very excited about. She's getting good about helping pick up her blocks and other toys, and she loves to help me do things like put dirty clothes in the washing machine and throw her dirty diapers in the dumpster.
- She LOVES to read books. Sometimes, she'll have me read the same book to her five times in a row. She likes to turn the pages herself. A few of the books she has are picture books with pictures of different animals, so she is starting to learn different animals and the noises they make.
- She loves playing with my cell phone. She has her own little toy phone, but she seems to know it's not real. She is always stealing my phone, and she will walk around the living room holding it to her ear and "talking" up a storm to goodness knows who. She is so funny.
- She is a daddy's girl. She gets SO excited every evening when she hears him unlocking the front door of our house to come in from work. She will squeal and scream "Daddy!" and give him a big hug and kiss.
- She loves going to "Nana's" house. My parents have a bumpy gravel driveway, and every time we pull into it to drive up to their house, Rylee will immediately scream "Nana!" and get all excited. (She loves seeing her "Papa" and "Aunt Mana", too.)
- She is learning the parts of her body. She knows where her hair, eyes, nose, ears, mouth, teeth, belly, fingers, and feet are. Every now and then, she will show us where our parts of the body are, too. We have to watch out, because she will quickly poke us in the eye and say "eye".
- She has a pretty extensive vocabulary, and we have been working on teaching her manners. She can say "please", but it sounds more like she's saying "tease" or "keys". Her "thank you" and "you're welcome" sound exactly the same: "huh-huh". At least she's giving it SOME effort, right?
- She loves bath time.
- She is still sleeping very well in her crib for her nap times and bed time. She has to have her "baby" with her, though. "Baby" goes everywhere with us. She even made it in our family pictures with us the other day (see the second picture posted here).
- She does a good job saying prayers with us. Every time we tell her it's time to bless the food, she will immediately fold her hands, and when we finish praying and say "Amen", she will say "Amen" as well.

I know those are all pretty random things, and I'm sure I'm leaving a million things out, but that's about all I can think of for now. That should give you at least a little bit of an idea as to what Rylee is like these days. She sure does keep me busy, but she's so much fun, and I wouldn't trade spending my days with her for anything else in the world. I love my little girl!