21 Months Old

As time goes by, I feel it's harder to talk about how you've changed. You continue to build your vocabulary daily, learn new skills and develop your existing ones. You insist on more and more independence as the weeks go by. Your personality and sense of humour continues to shine brightly.

Here in a nutshell is what's new this past 3 months:

• You can say your own name
• You moved up a room at nursery
• You had your first haircut
• Your favourite songs are Heads Shoulder Knees & Toes, Baa Baa Black Sheep and Hokey Cokey
• Your favourite theme tunes are PJ Masks, Mr Tumble and Mr Bean
• You can count to 10 and recognise numbers written down
• You suck your thumb less
• You can be so polite. You say sorry and thank you (very) much, you often cover your mouth when you cough, you bless people when they sneeze
• You can also be the complete opposite and tell people no or go away, cough right in peoples faces and announce your bowel movements (possibly a good sign from a potty training perspective though)
• You're beginning to grow into age 2-3 years clothing size

So here you are. 21 months old. 1 and 3/4 years old. A little taller, a little wiser, a lot funnier! My beautiful little Rayna Rose xx

Today you had your first haircut...

18 Months Old

Today you are one and a half. You are a proper little lady now and are such an enjoyable character to watch. You learn new things every day, your personality changes and develops.... and the strops!!!! oh my god, the strops. The contrast between having a boy and having a girl have always been there but as you get older and assert your independence more, you do it in a much more forceful way than your brother did.

You WILL be heard. You WILL get what you want. And if you don't, well, then comes the feet stamping, the paddying, the pretend crying.... ooohh you can be so manipulative.

But at the same time, I totally love that about you. You are strong-willed. You know what you like and that's what you want. A girl after my own heart.

So, shortly after your 15-month blog update, you started to walk more and more. You had the balance and ability for a long time but this was the point that you really started to practice and it wasn't long before you were running round confidently with your brother.

The mastering of cutlery came along really quickly in a short space of time and now you can eat an entire meal from start to finish with your spoon or fork - it's just a shame you then rub your hands in the mess afterwards. And then usually through your hair too.

Spending 2 days a week at nursery is seeing you come home doing new things. You love to dance anyway but now you sing too, lots of nursery rhymes (heads, shoulders, knees & toes is a big fave!) and although you might not get the words right yet, the tune is usually spot on.

We're just coming out of a particularly awkward phase at the moment. We're pretty sure your second molars are giving you grief as they attempt to break through but on top of that we going through Wonder Weeks leap 10. Back to the good old "three c's":

• clingy
• cranky
• crying

Yep, yep and yep! But as all this is going on, we see loads of new skills emerging from you. Your vocabulary has increased rapidly over the last few weeks and you can say a ton of new words! You have learned animal names and the sounds they make, you have learned facial features and can point to them, you have learned new objects around the home.... and you now call me mummy instead of mama <3 I absolutely love hearing it!

(Your current favourite book - it taught you about animals and the sounds they make)

The good news is that leap 10 is the last one.

The bad news is that we then have zero excuses to blame any crappy behaviour that may follow on in future :D haha.

But my beautiful Rayna, you are worth all the good and bad times. I love you my fierce little lady xx

Today you took your first steps...

...well, sort of!

To be fair, your first unaided steps came weeks ago! Only a few at a time, but you definitely had the balance and coordination to do it. You just didn't want to.

In fact, most of the steps you took without holding on were usually when you were so distracted by something else, you weren't even thinking about it. But given the choice, especially if we tried to coax you, you would just drop down and crawl.

I'm not sure if it was a lack of confidence or pure laziness.

But these past few days you have been braving it more and more and today I got your first official steps on camera - so yeah, not your first steps but the first ones we can really count :D

1 (and a ¼) Year Old

My beautiful Rayna! When your first birthday came around a few months ago, life seemed to have flown by to that point and my little girl was 'growing up fast'. The past 3 months however, have been a very different story. Your coming of age seemed to turn you into a devil child, especially where sleep was concerned. Gone were the days of self-settling and sleeping all night that started when you were only a few months old - it was like having a newborn again, only harder work!

You were clingy and unsettled. There was a monumental amount of teeth sprouting all at once (you now have 16 of your 20 teeth)! And you were getting to grips with the world around you which was expanding quicker than you could handle. It's been a tough stage, but through it all, there have been lots of good things that have come out of those stormy clouds...

You still babble and chatter like never before (nursery always comment on how chatty you are) but now there seems to be much more purpose to our conversations. You understand so much more of what we say to you and your vocabulary is coming along great. You can say at least eight clear, distinct and understandable words:

• mama
• dada
• baby
• hiya
• yeah
• birdy
• car
• tickle

Along with a few work-in-progress things like desta/dexter, di-saw/dinosaur, shuss/shoes, wo wo wo/to sing row row row your boat, ee I ee I/to sing Old MacDonald.

You point at everything to learn about the things around you.

You give yourself a clap when we call you a clever girl.

You shake your head so cheekily when we tell you NO!

I know that every time I sit down to write your blog and reflect on what has happened since the last one that it seems that so much has happened and that you have changed/grown so much! But watching you from a distance now, I notice so many grown up qualities emerging.

I love to watch you explore now. Playing with your shape sorter. Putting things into containers. Trying to build towers with your stacking cups. But most of all, I adore watching you interact with your brother. You love to join in with his games and do what he is doing. You can take or leave your dolls but will play with a monster truck any day of the week. Vrooming them across the carpet (apparently a car & a dinosaur make the same sound). Racing with Dexter. Playing together. It's heartwarming for any parent to watch their children bond like that. And he has so much time for you. Yes, you can play the role of his annoying little sister quite a bit, but he actually loves you to pieces <3

One Year Old

This time last year I was calmly going through my early stages of labour. Keeping myself busy. Telling myself that this could go on for ages. I didn't expect to see you until at least the next day. But despite being 6 days overdue, when you finally decided you wanted to get out, you wanted out quick!!!

Fast forward 12 months.... I'll be honest, today is not exactly how I pictured your first birthday. In my plans it would be fun & playful. We would have quality family time & yummy food....

The reality was you being ill. Like really ill. The day actually involved a trip to the doctors, frequent doses of medicine and lots of sleep. We did eventually get through all your presents...

We had to seize brief opportunities of perkiness between exhausted, poorly naps and took three attempts to get through them all. I didn't care that your sweaty bed head made your hair look a mess or that you had snot running all down your face.... this was YOUR BIRTHDAY. Your FIRST birthday and I would be damned if I wasn't going to get photos to remember this day. Luckily, we did still manage to get plenty of smiles.

Thankfully, your birthday fell mid-week and we had already celebrated the occasion with a party last weekend. You were already not feeling great then either but you still really enjoyed being made a fuss over.

So what can I say about the one year old you? You are growing up far faster than I could have ever imagined and change on a daily basis. Since our last update:

• you decided that even though you could stand & cruise, you now wanted to crawl properly instead of commando crawl
• you are getting better at standing without holding on
• you are much more interested in books now and love me reading to you, this is your favourite book at the moment and will seek it out and hand it to me to read

• your hair is growing longer & thicker (and curlier)
• we still daren't check if you have any of your back teeth
• you chatter even more

Words you can say include:

• mama
• dada
• dedah (dexter)
• hiya
• birdy

You are such a big girl and have been comfortably filling your 12-18 month wardrobe for the last few weeks already. Although you are super tall but really skinny.... so you live in leggings! (trousers that are long enough for your legs are usually waaaaay too baggy for your waist).

And for the past few weeks you have been having settle sessions at nursery. You will be starting one full day a week from next week to give you chance you spend time with other children your age. Dexter loved his time there and learned a lot, hopefully you will enjoy it too.

It hasn't been easy, but this has been a really rewarding year with you in our lives.

You complete us xx

Lukas Graham - 7Years was number 1 the day you were born

Your First Shoes!

As you are growing more and more confident on your feet every day, today we took you to get your first pair of shoes (cruisers). You measured in at 3½ F which is exactly the same size Dexter's were when we took him for his first shoes too :)

11 Months Old

Oh my god girl, you are 11 months old today!!!

It feels like a lot has happened recently. You have done a lot of growing up.

Since you started cruising, your new sense of balance + desire to climb has seen safety gates go up and your cotbed get lowered. You are much more confident on your feet. You stand up, squat down, move between pieces of furniture, walk holding our hands, clamber on & over everything (including Dexter) and basically just go wherever you want!

Our weaning journey seems to have come on leaps & bounds in the last few weeks. Milk has been cut right down and you are a lot happier to try new things. The messier the better! And after so long refusing to entertain the idea water, you guzzle it like there is no tomorrow.

Although you started clapping aaaaaaages ago, no matter how hard we tried, you just refused to wave. However, a couple of weeks ago you finally waved for the first time.... and now we get hello's and bye-bye's all the time.

You chatter and babble in such adorable new ways.

And in addition to mama, dada, and uh-oh, we have a new word....

Dexter! (well, sort of)

I mean, it is a tough name to pronounce and it took ages before even he could say it clearly... but whenever you see your brother you call him dedah. The first time, I put it down to coincidence, but you do it all the time now. It's so sweet and Dexter praises you whenever he hears you say it <3

Lately, when I've been out & about and seen new mums pushing their babies around in their pushchairs, I wonder where the hell this time has gone. That was me only a few months ago. What happened?? I want to go back. I get slightly jealous knowing that it will never be me again. I aren't going to lie, the past 11 months haven't been without their difficult times, but I feel that your personality is really starting to emerge now... just in time for me going back to work and missing out on it all (although it's only part time right now so we still get more time together than apart.)

You never promised to make it easy for us, but you definitely make it worth it xx