Sarah is 19 Months Old

Sarah is 19 months old now and such a fun little munchkin. The once laid-back baby who wasn't really into moving around is not either of those things anymore. Sarah loves to move around and explore. She often just walks around to walk around. When we had that nice warm day about a week ago, all Sarah wanted to do was walk around - no toys, no wagon ride, just walking and feeling the different surfaces under her feet, like the grass, the concrete, the sand, the leftover snow. As I've mentioned in the past, if she doesn't get what she wants, she's quite vocal these days. Even when walking around, if I try to change her direction, she gets really upset and starts barking at me.

Sarah still loves her music, and even has a few favorite songs. She sings/hums the ABC/Twinkle Twinkle song a lot, as well as Baby Beluga. I think she's also started humming The Wheels on the Bus and Do Re Mi from The Sound of Music. When we're in the car, her face always lights up when John Jacob Jingleheimer Schmidt comes up on the CD we have there. When it comes to music, she becomes totally animated and excited. I'm interested to see if this actually leads to an interest in music in the future! I don't want to sound like a tiger mom or anything, but I'd totally love that. :)

Sarah's also starting to show more interest in books and having a slightly longer attention span for listening to them. She'll often go to her bookshelf, pick out a book, mosey on over, stick her butt out at me in preparation to sit in my lap, plop down, then shake the book up and down while going "ee ee ee." After the book is over, she will get up, get another and repeat the sequence. I'm not sure what she's absorbing when we read these books to her, but she definitely has her favorites. If I pick up a book that she's not into, she'll whine and keep trying to close the book while I'm reading it.

At long last, Sarah is speaking. Not a lot, but she's definitely improving. She says "here you go" a lot when giving us things. Some random words she's been saying are: mama, dada, baby, bee (she has a bee lovey that she has recently become extremely attached to), box, book, juice, hi, and bye. She seems to be really good at the "b" words..haha. Even with animal sounds, she's always very emphatic when I ask her what sound a sheep makes - BAAAA!!! But when it comes to other sounds, she kind of only gets the vowel parts. For example she'll always respond consistently when I ask her what sound a cat makes, but instead of saying "meow", she'll go "yeow" instead. Or if I ask her what sound a goose makes, instead of "honk" she'll say "onk."

The only other thing I can think of for this month is a lot of teething. Sarah's teeth have been reeeeeally slow to come in, but in the past month it seems like all the teeth are coming out at the same time. She has swollen gums everywhere, and I see a couple of teeth starting to make their way out already. Ouch! Hopefully it'll be all over soon by the 20 month update and not too painful!