Chandler @ 18-months

Oh...my sweet little Chan-Chan...that's what we are calling you these days!

Your Stats:

Ht:  33" and 85%

Wt:  26.2 lbs and 80%

HC:  18 1/4 and 50%

Very consistent...big baby, small head.  =)

This is not a great picture, but here you are with one of your friends who is just 2 weeks younger than you to get an idea of how big you are.  =)

Things you love:
Being Outside

Dancing

Mickey Mouse, Dora, Special Agent OSO, Wiggles

Raisins, Orange juice

Baby Dolls

Playing Dress-Up

And making us all laugh.  It is very common for us all (even Brooking) to be laughing out loud at something hilarious that you are doing on purpose to make us laugh.

2 of my FAVORITE things that you do are:
1.  Roar like a lion to try to scare people
(It is so sweet and delicate, that you are really not scary at all, but you think it's HILARIOUS!)

 and
2.  You make this face on command...anytime I ask, which is often because it is SO stink in' cute!

There are SO MANY things about you that make me think you might be a genius!

But here are just a couple:
1.  Your vocabulary!!  You say probably 200 words...it's INSANE!  And you'll attempt to say any word, phrase or sentence that I ask you to.  Some of my favorite things you say are "What's that?", "Shake it off" (whenever you hurt yourself), and "Don't know" (when I ask you something that you don't know...it's just really funny coming from a 1-year-old

2.  You go potty.  You are not potty-trained, but anytime you see one or hear someone say that word, you ask to go and have success with #1 and #2.  You also wipe, flush and wash your own hands.  You probably go potty 3 times a day!!  Brilliant!

3.  You can sing the whole alphabet song...granted more letters are wrong than are right, but I can recognize the tune and you hit that key letters, ABCD, G, P, Q, V.  You also sing Jesus Loves Me and Old McDonald.

You still don't sleep very much!  Probably just 10-11 hours at night and just a single 1.5 hour nap during the day.  But when you are sleeping, you sleep HARD!

And you'll sleep anywhere!  Yesterday, we went to pick you up from the church nursery and you were asleep in a bright room, full of other babies your age.  You had fallen asleep on a buggy ride they had taken you on, stayed asleep when they moved you over to a crib, stayed asleep when I took you out, walked you out to the car, buckled you into your car seat and slept all the way home!!

I often get you out of the car when you fall asleep, will change your diaper and put you in your crib and you never wake up.  You don't sleep much, but when you do, you don't play around about it!!

The only time you get a paci is when you sleep and before you'll take it, you make us rinse it off!  You get in your crib, hand it to us and say, "Wash."  Funny girl!

Your downside, if there has to be one, is that you will no longer sit in a high chair (only boosters like Brooklyn) or in a shopping cart, which makes you REALLY difficult to shop with!!
This was what happened when we tried to go to Old Navy the other day.

You just wanted to hang out with the headless children mannequins!

Needless to say, this was not a successful trip and we weren't able to get anything.

You are still VERY snuggly and loving.  You say, "I love you."  Melts my heart!

You are still pretty much a mommy's girl, but you are starting to be a lot friendlier around others.  You will let others hold you, you don't cry or cling when getting dropped off in church nursery, and you wave, smile and say to EVERYONE we see.

And you've really warmed up to your Daddy!!  And, of course, he's become smitten with you!

Oh yeah, one more cute thing you do is mimic people.  You will watch how they are standing or how they are holding their hands and try to copy it.  LOVE THAT!  LOVE YOU!!

Oh...and you help me make my bed every day.  You bring me every single pillow...some of them are as big as you are, but you are very determined and do such a good job!!  Such a great helper!!

I could just keep writing about you forever, but I have to stop somewhere.

Happy 18-month birthday, Baby Chandler!!