Elliott at 22 months

I've been absolutely terrible about doing month milestone updates on here since Elliott turned one. But  I feel like she is changing so much everyday and probably will be so different in just a couple months from now (for her birthday) that I should do a post of where she is at 22 months. 

Elliott is a fearless, rambunctious little girl. She is rarely scared of anything. And if she is hesitant at first, she warms up to things very quickly (especially people). We are currently in the stage of constantly trying to keep her alive. From swimming in the pool to running out in the road, this girl has very little fear. 

Elliott finished her first year of swim lessons last week. We did a mom and tot class which was so much fun. Elliott has always loved the water and has never had much fear in it, so my hope with swim lessons, was to instill a bit of fear. I can't say that we achieved that. If anything, she is more confident in the water but still doesn't grasp that she could drown at any second. Her swim lesson mastery was in jumping. This girl can jump high and far into the pool. During swim lessons she did great about letting me know when she was going to jump, but since then has started jumping in anywhere, even if someone isn't there to catch her. She loves going under the water so she will just jump in! It terrifies me sometimes, but mostly I love it. It says so much about her personality. I can't wait to see how she attacks life with that same mentality in the future. Despite our best attempts, she still has no fear near the water and so until she does, we are going to be watching her closely anytime she is near water. 

Jack and Elliott after swim lessons

Elliott loves people. Everywhere we go she waves and says hello to every person she passes. And if they are particularly friendly back, she will quickly make friends with them. On the Fourth of July, Elliott and I arrived early to stake out a spot in the grass. There was a middle-aged couple sitting on a blanket next to us and Elliott quickly made them her new best friends. She talked to them about her shoes, her clothes, her hair, her ball, her books, her crayons, etc. She tried to get the lady to read a book to her, played ball with them and looked through their binoculars while saying, "cheese".  The lady made a comment to me that was something like, "you've got to keep a close eye on her or someone will snatch her up, she's so cute!" But seriously, she loves everyone and she would have easily just walked away with that couple. Stranger danger does not exist in her mind. But I adore how friendly and outgoing she is around others. I hope that is something that stays with her forever. 

Elliott is talking up a storm! I am so happy with her language development. Language is one of the milestones that varies so much and so her talking as much as she does, really doesn't say that much, but I'm happy with how well she talks and how much! I think her language really matches her personality. She is definitely a little extrovert and she talks to match that. She is putting two and three words together these days. She loves talking about objects and who they belong to. "Daddy's shoes" or "Mommy's shirt". She also loves describing things a lot these days. "Heavy book" or "Yellow car". 

Elliott has those foam letters in the tub and one day, a couple weeks back, I noticed she held up the letter "O" and said it's name. I didn't remember teaching it to her, but I must have said it before because she knew. So I started asking her other letters and found she also knew "I". Since then we've been working on a few letters at a time and she now knows 5. "O" "I" "B" "E" and "Y". There are a few others she will get about half the time, but those she is solid on. I wasn't planning on teaching her letters this early, but she loves learning and started picking them up on her own, so why not? Now that she knows and recognizes those five letters, I see her pointing them out in books, on people's shirts, on labels, etc, etc. She sees them everywhere! I love it. 

Another newer development are her colors. She has known pink and yellow for quite a while but just these past couple weeks, it's as if the rest just finally "clicked". She knows white, brown, pink, blue, yellow, red, and purple. For some reason green is still hard for her, but we're working on it. ;)

My brother Joe came to visit for a couple days this week and called Elliott a little dictionary. I like to call her my labeler. She labels everything! Especially around new people. She will walk around the house pointing to everything she knows the name of saying it and telling you about it. It's been a wonderful way to develop her vocabulary because we learn a bunch of new words that way and she loves it. Even though I feel like she knows words for almost everything, she is still picking up new things every day. 

Elliott loves baby dolls. She has five or so and plays with them constantly. She rocks them, pats them, shushes them and kisses them. I just got her a baby pack n' play at DI this week and she loves putting them to bed. She always makes sure to tell me when the babies are sleeping and to be quiet. 

Elliott also loves all things girly. She was always asking to wear my jewelry so I decided to get her a little jewelry bag of her own. I gave her some of my own old jewelry and some little cheap bracelets and she loves pulling it all out and putting it on. She also is obsessed with my makeup. So I cleaned out some of my old containers, gave her a brush and she now has her own makeup to pretend with.

She also loves to read. Despite the 100s of books we have at home, we go to the library every couple weeks and load up on new books (that's how much we read). I can't tell you how many times I have read through all our books. I have to get library books to keep myself sane! :) I'm teasing...mostly. But really, this girl loves to read. She could sit and read books with me all day. 

And lastly, here are just a few cute things Elliott has said recently. 

One day Elliott started reaching for me and saying, "hold you". I finally realized it's because whenever she would reach for me I would say, "You want me to hold you?" And so, low and behold, she now says "hold you" anytime she wants to be held. Adorable grammatical mistake.

Last week we were playing with her picnic basket toy that is full of dishes and food and I asked her what something was. It was an orange. She thought for a second and said, "a lellow". I laughed so hard. She knew the name of the fruit was a color, just didn't pick the right one. 

Elliott learned the word heavy a few weeks ago and uses it constantly now. But she has started using it for anything that is awkward, big or heavy. So she'll pick up something very small but awkward to hold in your hand (like a small stack of toys, hard to hold in one hand) and grunt while saying, "heeaavvvyyy". It makes me laugh every time.  

She has started saying "okay" all the time. I obviously say it a lot when I'm doing things and talking to myself. When she pulls out a toy and gets ready to play with it she'll so, "okay" then play. Or she'll sit down with a book, say "okay", then open it and start to read. It's hilarious and adorable. 

Elliott really is one of the happiest, sweetest little toddlers you will every meet and she constantly has me in awe of the things she knows and does and just who she is. We love her so much!