18 months plus some other milestones

Well I let myself get way too behind on blogging and now I don't even know where to start. The task just seems to overwhelming at this point. There were a few milestones last week so I guess I will start there. Brennan and I celebrated our four year anniversary on the 19th. Hard to believe it has been four years. We got to celebrate in an extra special way with an ultrasound. Yes, if you haven't heard, we are having a baby. The due date is November 3rd and we just found out it's a boy! We are very excited. Tatum got to come to the ultrasound with us, but we regretted it when it ended up taking over an hour!

I'm pretty sure Tatum thinks "mommy's baby" is my belly button but oh well. :)

Here I am at 21 weeks. I feel like I am getting much bigger than I did with Tatum but I'm trying not to let it bother me. 

 My parents babysat Tatum that evening and we were able to go to Biaggi's for dinner and enjoy some dessert at the park. We also ran a few errands toddler-free, we sure know how to party.

 Tatum turned 18 months the next day. I can't believe we are already halfway through her second year of life! I love watching her grow and learn but at the same time I just want her to stop. There is a crazy mix of emotions revolving around children growing up. I've always heard parents say things along those lines, but I'm just barely beginning to get a feel for what they meant. We were in Mt. Vernon for her check up that day, which is probably just about her favorite place to be. Here she is taking Duke out, and looking especially cute I think.

Her appointment went well, in that she is a healthy, growing girl. But she hates the doctor's office! All it took was the doctor cleaning off his stethoscope to get Tatum to throw her arms around my neck, scream bloody murder and start trying to climb up me. I'm sure he loves when it's time for a Tatum check up. :) Her nurse is a good friend of my mom's and doesn't like that she has to be the bad guy and give Tatum shots. As she was leaving the room after the shot and saying bye to Tatum I asked Tatum to say goodbye to her. So between sobs Tatum let out the most pitiful sounding "mmmmmuah" and blew her a kiss. It was the funniest thing.

18 month stats:

Weight: 24 lbs (~70th percentile)
Height: 33 in (~90th percentile)
Head circumference: 47 cm

I don't really know what to say as far as an update goes. She does or says something new every day so I couldn't possibly list them all. She has started to pretend play, which is fun. She will sing "clean up, clean up" (just those two words) over and over again and is usually pretty good about cleaning up her toys or other messes she makes. She LOVES grandma and papa and nothing makes her more sad than having to say goodbye to them. When she wakes up in the morning I can usually hear her in her crib talking about grandma, papa and Caden. She is down to one nap and has been for awhile. It's finally starting to get close to two hours long. When we first cut back to one nap it was never more than 45 minutes. Not fun. For the last few weeks she has been obsessed with books. I realize this is a good thing but sometimes I get awfully tired of reading the same books over and over. Everything stops, and I mean everything, if she hears a train, an airplane or a dog. She is old enough for nursery at church! Yay! Too bad she won't go without us. :( We took her to the playground at the mall last week and Brennan commented that we could leave and she would be totally fine. She had no idea where we were and couldn't care less, but yet she freaks out when we take her to nursery. So bizarre. Oh well, hopefully eventually. She loves to swim but hates to get her hair washed in the tub. She loves most fruit and milk and that's where the list ends. She has not been much of an eater lately. She won't touch most vegetables with a ten foot pole. It can be quite frustrating but I try to remember it's probably just a phase. She loves going on bike rides, which is great because I love it too. There is so much more to say about this little girl but I will stop there. She is great and we love her death!

We'll end with a few photos of Tatum at 18 months.

She has enough hair for pigtails!....kind of. They are kind of interesting but I just couldn't resist.

 We had a photo shoot for her and that went over about as well as the doctor's office. But we did manage to get this cute one.