19 Months

It's a little late...more like 19.5 months.  Vera is keeping us on our toes, and she's learning more and more every second.  The latest developments are...

COLORING!  Vera loves to color!  We've also discovered that Vera's dad also enjoys coloring.  At least a few times a week, they sit at the table and color pictures together.  Vera only ever uses the blue colored pencil.  And she's a bit of a bully about sharing it.  More recently, we bought her a coloring book and she's been spending a lot of time filling those pages (yes, with only blue colored pencil.)  We still have left and right-handed coloring going on.  Check it out...

I know, I know.   Every elementary teacher out there is judging right now and saying that she should be using something fatter that she can control better.  This is better than nothing.  She's still working on her motor skills, right?  Vera will have to talk to St. Nick about some fat crayons or markers.

Sometimes coloring involves meltdowns...especially when she won't share the blue or puts the pencils in her mouth.

This may or may not be the one and only by mom.



One of many by dad.



Coloring while lying on the floor requires serious concentration.

Cheese!  Yes, this was a major rarity.  She insisted on using the brown.  Mom got the blue for once.

What else?  Oh yes...Patty is the best babysitter ever!  Thanks to Patty, Vera can sing her entire alphabet.  As of now she can count to about 15 or 16.  She can recognize most all of her colors and says them fairly clearly.  She now says "Yes" when she wants something and sometimes even "Yes, please!"  Wow!  Thanks Patty!  You're the best! 

We recently found out that she knows how to fold her hands to pray, which is really cute.  Right now at home we are working on how to make the Sign of the Cross.  She can say the words, but her hands don't go in the right places at the right times.  This is all pretty amazing to me.  Vera Lou is growing up!

Within the last few weeks, we've noticed Vera sitting with her ankle resting on her knee.  She must see her dad sit like this.  She does it all the time.  In the car seat, on the floor, in her chair...  It's so silly looking.

Funny phrases...

*"Whoopsie!"

*"Good idea!"

*"I love..." chocolate milk, fishies, Mickey...and anything else she loves.

*"Delicious!"

*"Mommy/daddy, where are you?"

*"Mommy/daddy, wait!"

*"Come on!" as she's running to show you something.

*"Turn TV off."  She really means turn TV on.  This doesn't work in her favor.

*"Reada book shapes!" Asking to read the shapes book on the ipad.  We don't even bring the ipad out if she's around because she will be adamant about reading the shapes book.  Thanks to this book (and probably Patty too) she can recognize circles and sometimes squares.

*"I get it."

*"I poopa pants."  Awesome.

*"I a pirate arrgh."  One afternoon as we are driving home from Patty's.

*"I a princess."  No idea where this came from. 

*"memote"  We quickly learned this is remote.  She is obsessed with Mickey.  We watch limited amounts of Mickey these days.  The child could watch it all day every day!

*"Watch Mickey"  Not funny.  Will drive a parent crazy.

*"Tolders"  Which means she wants to ride on dad's shoulders.  An almost-nightly event.

 

There's very little jabber these days.  Most of what she says can be understood.  Unbelievable how fast that happens!

 

If you can't tell, Monkey is supposed to be riding on Vera's shoulders.

If you haven't noticed from the pictures, Vera has learned how to "smile" recently too.  It's an eye-squinted and wrinkled nose look with her mouth open.  Typical toddler, right?

Vera is way too smart for her britches these days.  Daily, we laugh at the things she can come up with.  Christmas ought to be fun this year!  We've started to talk about Ho Ho and using that to try to correct behavior.  It hasn't worked yet.