Kenley is 19 months on the 19th!

I have done a poor job of making mental notes this month,
probably due to my severe pregnancy brain, but here are a few highlights.

Kenley can now say her last name! We noticed this last week after she repeated it back to us
nearly perfectly. A couple days ago, her report from school said she was saying it there too.
I asked her teachers about it and they said they call the kids by their full name sometimes,
so she’s been hearing it a lot. We’re now working on putting all her names together.

One major change is that we have now been in a big girl bed for almost a month now.
Due to our pediatrician’s recommendations and the impending arrival of our second child,
we thought it’s now or never. Kenley has done insanely well. So much so that Greg actually said,
“it’s not this easy is it??”. She knows when it’s bed time and most days she’s too tired to even think
about getting up after we’ve put her down. This week has been somewhat challenging,
but she also has had a bad cold, and it’s been nothing that we couldn’t handle.
She still gets up at the crack of dawn some days (joy) but usually will play in her room,
and occasionally try to open the door or knock on it…you know, so we know she’s in there?
Naps are a little more difficult since it’s broad daylight and there are a lot of distractions
in her room, so it’s a crap shoot each day to see how it will go.
I will note that she has been sleeping on a cot during nap time at school since she turned one,
so I am sure that helped in this transition process.
I am also sure that we aren’t out of the woods yet and she may still regress,
but I can say that we are pleased so far with the transition to the big girl bed!

Just in the past week, Kenley seems so old to me. Like, a legit toddler.
I think it may be that her hair is getting so long! All of a sudden, she has a full head of
blondish-strawberry-blondish curly hair. Including bangs in her face at times…
She has been asking for pigtails recently, but doesn’t leave them in too long,
so we tried a ponytail, and it may be the cutest thing ever… She leaves it in too, which is fun.

Another new thing this month is sorry…or “soooo-rry”.
We have been asking her to say it after she hits someone, usually in the face and she has caught on.
She will say it whenever she does something she knows she’s not supposed to do,
but, hasn’t quite realized that she shouldn’t be doing it in the first place. I guess that will come.

While we have been watching Mickey Mouse Clubhouse for several months, it was usually background noise,
as she wouldn’t really be interested in sitting in one place for an extended period of time.
She identifies the characters and loves the songs, but just recently she has really been into actually watching the episode.
She will sit in her big green chair, sometimes with a snack, and watch,
laughing and calling for “Toodles” throughout the show.
While we don’t want her sitting in front of the TV for hours of the day, an episode here and there when we need to get
stuff done around the house, or cook dinner, is nice. It helps that it is somewhat educational too, right?

I’m sure there is a lot more I should be writing about, but that’s all for now!
Happy 19th months Kenley Dee…Gilbertson!