Eliza at 21 Months

At 21 months, Eliza has as much energy as ever. She is learning fast and talking really well. Here are a few random notes on Eliza lately:

• She is very good at remembering names. She knows the names of every kid we've ever played with, as well as all the muppets (thanks to our muppet books) and all the Sesame Street characters (thanks to sesamestreet.org).

• Eliza prefers sleeping on the floor to sleeping in her toddler bed. Usually she curls up right next to the door, which makes it tricky to go check on her.

• Independent is Eliza's middle name as of late. It takes ages to dress her not only because she wants to wear what she wants to wear, but because she wants to do everything "self."

• Eliza continues to be very imaginative.

• Eliza has learned the power of kisses. When ever she gets (or invents) an owie, she asks for a "tiss" and then tells us "better" afterward.

• Eliza is good at sharing. We often have to discourage sharing though, because she always tries to share food with Caleb and often offers her sippy cup to friends.

• Eliza loves labeling everything by saying who it belongs to (daddy's chair, Caleb's toy, Eliza's skirt, mommy's pillow). Thankfully she doesn't say "mine" often. She just labels things as Eliza's.

• Her favorite number is zero. She identifies it in any words that have the letter "0."

• Now that Caleb is talking, she loves to imitate his "words." It's pretty cute.

• Eliza loves to sing. At night she requests songs like "Temple," "Rosie," "Spider,"and "Jesus... beam." In the car she always asks for the kids music to be turned on.

Every time I lay down a blanket to swaddle Caleb, Eliza jumps onto it before I can put Caleb down. When my sister Whitney, a champion swaddler, was in town, she wrapped Eliza up in one of Caleb's blankets. Eliza loved it.

When Eliza is alone in the kitchen and the house is quiet, I get suspicious. As you can see, she helps herself to anything within her reach (which has really expanded lately).

Here she is caught red-handed helping herself to Daddy's oatmeal.

Contrary to what the above pictures show, Eliza doesn't stay in her sleeper all day. I guess we just take more pictures in the morning.

This is Eliza with her friend Liam, whose chub reminds us of Eliza at that age.

While they are friends, she doesn't hesitate to take his toys.