Brynna is at such a fun age. She’s also at a very frustrating age. She 100% knows how to throw a temper tantrum. She is still at that age where it is hard for her to communicate what she wants and even if we do understand she doesn’t always get what she wants. Enter the tantrum. She throws herself to the ground like the world is ending and we walk away. The funny thing is when she is done (which it doesn’t last long) she comes over and cuddles with you. Sometimes I want to see a tantrum just for the extra cuddles. (Check out that amazingly perfectly timed picture of Brody in the background…cracks me up!)
Her communication skills are improving so hopefully we’ll see less tantrums due to lack of understanding what she wants (I don’t think they will disappear totally for quite some time with her). She wasn’t saying a ton consistently until around 17 months. It really picked up one week and we love hearing her try to say new things. Some of my favorite things she says: wa wa (water), cracker (for any food item), baby and so much more. She uses baby sooooo much and her cute little voice saying it is often too much to handle. She is a huge fan of babies and of course for her that means anyone small not necessarily an actual baby. She gave the new daycare baby Emma lots of attention when she started which thankfully has leveled out some. She knows Sevea’s name and has also been saying Amy recently. It’s not clear if she knows that is my name for sure or not. So I just hope that doesn’t turn into a regular thing instead of calling me mommy. Oh the joys of them hearing my name all the time at daycare.
She loves books. She does really well at sitting for bedtime stories and seems to already have a couple favorites. She tends to grab Lola Loves Stories which is about a little girl who acts out her bedtime story the next day. Another favorite is the Itsy Bitsy Spider. A fun book about the spider we know and love who succeeds at staying up on that rooftop. This is a book that I don’t mind reading over and over again. She is often bringing me books to read and I’ve calmed a meltdown by reading to her as well. Thinking about it I should bring some books along to entertain her when we’re out. She works on her communication skills when we read a lot. I love the animal sounds she is trying to make with her favorite one being a growl for more animals than only the ones that growl but her cute little hoo-hoo-hoo for an owl can’t be beat.
Overall she is a really good toddler. She has her crabby moments but plenty of really happy moments to balance those out. She is definitely a kid who picks up on what others are doing. She wants to sit at the table like a big kid. She wants to push the toys up and down the hall just like the big kids. She found a love for dancing watching her sister all the time. She wants to color ALL.THE.TIME. It is almost irritating getting out the crayons for the bigger kids because she always insists on coloring too. She just doesn’t always remember just on the paper or her own paper. She likes to empty the dishwasher (the utensils). She likes to throw things away in the garbage…even things you don’t want her to. She is very observant and definitely catches on to things quickly…when she finds it interesting of course. And it isn’t always good things. Of course with Brynna she would pick up on negative things quickly too. She will hit and push others when she is upset or sometimes it seems just because. I again am reminded that she will likely give us a run for our money.
Good thing she is still little so she’s easier to handle. She weighed in this doctor visit at 23 lbs and 7 oz (60%) which is up 1 lb from three months ago. She grew an inch and a half during that time putting her at 30.5 inches (11%). She’s still on the shorter side but the gain in percentage from 7.5% was nice to see. Her growth rate seems to be pretty on par with the other two kids and no surprise there. No tall giant mailman looking kid for us and she is clearly not Jamaican like my friends would joke, haha!
We’ve had a very interesting 18 months with Brynna and we can’t wait to see what the next months bring. I’m sure more excitement, happiness, fun and definitely frustration will be in our future.
