Month Eighteen Update

Stats: 22lbs 9oz (22nd percentile), 32 ¼ in (63rd percentile)

Clothes: Mostly 12-18 month clothes, with a little in the next size up and next size down (although the shorts in her 18 month pic are 3-6 months! Crazay!). Lots of tank tops, sundresses, and strappy jumpers, but looking forward to skinny jeans and Chucks when the weather eventually cools down, you know, in January.

Favorite Foods: PB & J, fruit of all kinds, but strawberries and grapes are her favorites, black beans and rice, green beans, waffles, pasta, Pita pocket pizzas.

Favorite Words: Hi ("hi-ee"), bye ("eye"), wow, cheers ("ti"), uh-oh, and almost says thank you ("tee-tee"). A week ago she started saying daddy ("da-ee")!

Favorite Activities: Putting toys in bags and carrying them around the house, building with her mega blocks, reading, reorganizing her books from one shelf to the other, dancing, anything involving water (bath time, pool time, water table, beach), emptying her dresser, and, as always, walking.

Least Favorite Activities: The main issue is when her favorite activities have to come to an end. Let's just say we've seen our share of tantrums, thrown when we have to go inside to eat lunch, leave the beach, or when we won't let her run on the sofa or walk into the street. Typical stuff for this age.

Signature Moves: This kid is a dancing machine, and, as a dancer (way back when), it makes me sooo happy! She's got different moves for different types of music, even the slow stuff when she throws her arms out and starts to turn slowly. She's a big car seat dancer, too, and recognizes certain songs right away and immediately gets her boogie on. It's amazing! She's also blowing lots of kisses, and even says "muah", high-fives, and waves when saying "bye".

Momma of the Year Award: Turned my back to rub sunscreen on the Hubs' back and the kid took a swan dive off the sofa, clipped the coffee table, and face-planted on the rental condo carpet. Gross. 

Daddy of the Year Award: While splashing around in Crescent Beach, Z was knocked off her feet by a tiny wave and was dunked under. The Hubs was maybe two feet away and scooped her up quickly.  After a couple of seconds, Z was totally fine. I, of course, lost my mind. 

Milestones: In the last few months, Z has been getting more and more independent, which is wonderful and totally nerve-wracking. She had her annual check up with the neurosurgeon (read about that here), her first visit to the zoo (read about it here), first time swimming in the ocean (here), she's finally kicked the bottle and is finally drinking her milk from a cup (and how awesome to not have to deal with a million Dr. Browns bottle parts anymore!!), she sort of eats with a fork (and by "with", I mean she usually holds it in one hand and eats with her fingers on the other), and has watched Frozen 100 times (but who hasn't?!).

Having an 18 month-old is so hard sometimes. She's testing her limits, thinks discipline is a game (is it even possible to discipline a kid this age?), and it sometimes feels like there are five of her. But the majority of days, being a mom is so much fun. The goofiest personality has emerged and I can't wait to see what she comes up with every day! 

Word.

Beachin' It

So, it's no secret that we live, maybe, 8 minutes from the beach - and that's if we hit all red lights and the bridge is up. We try to go once a week, if the weather is good and we don't have too much to get done that day. But there's something about going away to a different beach for a little vacay. So we packed up the VDub and headed north up to Crescent Beach, just south of St. Augustine. (And don't worry about squished little Scout. She only spent a short time in the car before we dropped her off at the grandparents' where she was spoiled to no end, I'm sure.)

We love Crescent Beach! The beaches are wide and perfect for a wandering toddler who loves to walk, walk, and walk some more. 

We went up to Crescent last summer, when the kid was just about 5 months old. She was a little afraid of the waves, so we spent most of our beach-going time relaxing in the shade of our little tent.

But this year... well, so much has changed!

Obviously, we spent the majority of our time on the beach. But, the pool was nice, too!

Typical for Florida summer weather, the storms rolled in every afternoon...

which made for some spectacular sunsets!

One of the best parts of the trip was seeing Zoey get along so well with my cousin's girls. Lots of reading and parallel play going on with these three!

On the last night of our visit, the whole family, all four of my cousins, two of their wives, three kiddos under five, my aunt and uncle, the Hubs, and my mom headed in to St. Augustine to enjoy dinner on the patio at OC White's. Zoey really dug the live music...

After dinner, the three of us went for a little walk around the park at the end of St. George Street. A perfect end to our vacation. I'm already dreaming of next year's trip!

Lions, Giraffes, and Goats, Oh My!

We got back from Crescent Beach a couple of days ago, our beach vacay with my family. But while I sort through the pics from our trip, I had to use a little nap time to share Z's (and my) first trip to Lion Country Safari. The weekend before we headed north for vacay, my friend Jess and her little girl invited Zoey and I to brave the heat (and booyyy was it HOT!) and check it out. It's not too far from home, the girls got in free, and we were able to download a coupon online. Score!

After wrangling the carseat into the backseat of Jess's car, which took way longer than it should have and caused me to drip sweat, we were headed on our way. We decided that this would be a good time to test Z with her carseat front-facing, and I think her legs must have been so happy to not be folded up and squished. (If you're one of those folks who believe that kids should stay rear-facing until their ninth birthday, please keep it to yourself. We do what's right - and yet still safe - for us. Thanks.)

If you're not familiar, the Lion Country Safari adventure begins with a drive through the animal enclosures. With our girls on our laps (relax...the car was moving at 5 mph - max!), we saw a variety of antelopey/gazelley type animals, ostriches, zebras, rhinos, lions (which I failed to photograph...#zoofail), and my favorite, giraffes. Most of them were pretty lazy, thanks to the heat, but it was pretty amazing to have such awesome animals so close to the car.

Sorry for the horrible reflections of my legs. These guys were all so close to us, I couldn't resist snapping a shot! 

I was seriously tempted to open the window and pet a few that were really close, and it was super tough to keep myself from busting out of the car to run around and hug all of the giraffes! They're gentle giants, right?!

After the driving tour, we visited the park, which is more zoo-like.  We saw flamingos, giant porcupines, tortoises, macaws...but the animals that Z most enjoyed were the goats.  She was a little timid at first, but eventually greeted each goat in the petting area with a sweet "hi-ee" and a nice pat on the side. But there was one goat that she was especially enamored with-a sweet little black goat who was just chillin' in the shade.  I'm thinking that Zoey thought the goats were just strange looking dogs. The kid loves dogs.

After the goats, we went straight for the giraffe feeding area. I had done this a few times before at another zoo, but it never gets old. I was so excited for Z to feed the giraffes and see those long blue tongues.  She absolutely loved it. Lots of squeals and silly laughs. Seriously! How could you not love those faces?!

Before we left, a visit to the splash pad was essential. By now, it was at least 500 degrees and splashing around in the water sounded pret-ty good. We suited the girls up and let them run around for a bit in the craziness. After a while, Zoey threw an epic tantrum and it was time to hit the road.

We're talking a screaming-at-the-top-of-her-lungs, flailing, squirming, surely-everybody's-judging type of tantrum. We've all been there. It was obviously well past nap time. She was sacked out before we even made to the interstate.

We had such a great time, though I don't think I'll visit again unless it's cooler than 85 degrees outside. Did I mention it was hot?!

Have you guys had any great adventures in epic heat this summer?