It didn't really occur to me how long it's been since I last posted about @bella.bear until I read the comments on my last post.

Life's been full on over here.

With the whole covid thing going on we mostly keep to ourselves and generally avoid people. That said I reckon without covid we'd be doing the same thing anyway so really our life hasn't changed too much.

Down to one nap

We try to spend as much time as we can outdoors. Vitamin D, a bit of exercise and loads of fresh air is always a good thing right?

Plus, now that she's down to 1 nap a day I need to find more things that will keep her busy and entertained, and being outdoors easily shaves off 2 hours out of the day.

There was a short period where she was out of her night routine and wouldn't settle down until midnight. I thought she might be done with naps all together so one day I kept her up and skipped nap time and I almost died.

That was when I realised afternoon nap times were more for me than her 😅 (Can anyone relate?)

Food, glorious food

Development wise, things are moving along nicely.

Christmas last year was a lot more fun than the year before 😁 She got the concept of opening presents even though her motor skills weren't fully cooperating. But it seemed the opening part was the best part and she savored every minute of the unwrapping.

We did realise we had to keep eyeballs on her because she's taken to eating paper.

Not sure how that came about but any chance she gets, she will try to eat paper 🤷🏻‍♀️🤦🏻‍♀️ (Is this normal? 😱)

Since she was eating paper we thought we'd introduce more varieties of food. Like vegemite on toast 👇👇👇. Which was a hit and a shock 😁 I was not expecting that at all.

For a little bub she's got a pretty developed sense of taste.

She's not into bland things and prefers her food to be lightly seasoned. Too much seasoning and she'll reject it, but not enough and she only eat until she's had her fill. When she really likes something she'll keep eating it even after she's full.

Motor skills

After months of trying she can finally pull her socks on. It was one of those things she conscientiously attempted and it's finally paying off. Sometimes she'll get a toe stuck but most of the time she gets it on.

Lately she's been trying to put her jumper and tops on, but she gets it mixed up with pants and sometimes puts her legs through the neck hole. 🤦🏻‍♀️😁

She'll get stuck for a bit, have a little cry, I'd come to the rescue (cos that's part of my job description), untangle her, and she'll try again...

Gotta love her determination.

Empathy and caring for others

Although she's a very caring and affectionate baby, I was concerned that because she doesn't get to socialise with other kids very often that she may be lacking in social skills but she seems to play well with her cousins ~ the older ones anyway, the little ones, not so much.

She's very rough and doesn't know how strong she is just yet so we've been trying to teach her to be gentle and play softly.

I know playing with dolls is not the same as playing with another child but it's been a good practice point.

She does this "face" ~ the only word that I know that describes it perfectly is the tagalog word "gigil".

Definition for the Tagalog word gigil:
[adjective] trembling; thrill; thrilling; barely contained emotion; gritting of teeth from emotion; overwhelming emotion; Usually caused by anger, frustration or cuteness. source

When she pulls the face you know she's going to do something 🤦🏻‍♀️ Thankfully she's stopped pinching. She was doing that for a while and for a little baby she really got stuck into it. Like this thing would HURT. Now she grabs, which hurts less than pinching but still needs sorting out.

That said, she'll often run up to her cousins and give them a hug, a kiss or a pat. She's also very generous. She will literally take the food out of her mouth and give it to you.

EASTER HUNT!!

There's a lot of things she just knows like using the easter basket. 🤷🏻‍♀️

I was determined to do an Easter hunt this year since she was too little last year but I didn't want her gorging on chocolates so I got some tiny lindt bunny chocs, some of her favourite organic snacks and some Little People figurines.

I spread them out on the deck, didn't bother hiding them, gave her the basket and off she went. 🤷🏻‍♀️🤣

The look on her little face.. 😍 She absolutely loved it. Needless to say we'll be doing it again next year but I think I'll hide a few things.

At 19 months....

There's been a lot of changes, some good, some not so crash hot, and some things haven't changed at all.

She understands a lot more like how to put things away or to get her shoes. She says "Ta" when she wants something and "Ta" again once she gets it. She's got two full sentences. "Hi Daddy.", "Bye Daddy.". And more recently she's been saying "A B C."

The not so good side to all that is the terrible twos ~ I feel like it's come on early.

As sweet as she is, she's also headstrong, stubborn, very emotional, fearless, fast and has freaking long arms.

Honestly guys, I'm exhausted. She's so fast, it's like I blink and she's either got something or into something. The amount of times I've had to do a mouth inspection/extraction.... 🤦🏻‍♀️😑

The weirdest thing is she'll closely inspect what I'm feeding her but she'll pick something up off the ground and shove it on her mouth without hesitation. 🤷🏻‍♀️🤷🏻‍♀️

The swing is a total blessing. She loves it. She wakes up and straight away grabs her shoes (and mine too if I don't move fast enough for her liking) and signals to go outside. Once out she'll run to the swing and moves the straps to the side.

She'll happily sit there for half an hour if I let her and I tell ya, I'm tempted. It's 30 minutes of sanity, of not being on high alert wondering what she'll get into next, 30 minutes of just having a happy baby.

What hasn't changed? I'm still breastfeeding, although mainly at bed times now ~ I suspect it's more for comfort rather than nutrition. We're also still co-sleeping which, tbh, I'm not hating. I'm actually dreading the day we stop. (Now, that can't be normal right?)

That's about it for my Bella update. I hope you enjoyed the catch up. It's good to be blogging again. I missed you guys!

❤