Layla at 21 months

Every six months, I have been writing a letter to Layla.  In the letters, I tell her about the milestones that she has reached, her personality and anything important that is going on in our lives. My intentions are to give Layla the letters when she is older so she will have an account of what she was like when she was little.

I'm not writing her a letter again until she turns two, but she has changed so much since she was eighteen months that I wanted to write it down.

At twenty-one months, Layla is such a character.  She loves to color, go on the swings and play with her animals and dolls. She loves dancing, especially to Usher's "DJ Got Us Falling In Love" and going to The Little Gym.  She can count to 12, although she always leaves out 4.  She is the greatest hummer ever and always hums entire songs while she plays.  Her favorites are the Caillou theme, ABCs, Twinkle Twinkle, If All the Raindrops, and Head, Shoulders, Knees and Toes.  She has begun to string words together and is even making simple sentences ("Walking...Mommy walk, Daddy walk", "Elephant sit, monkey sit, roar (lion) sit". She just started saying "Love you" which melts my heart! 

Layla is more affectionate than any child I have ever met.  She loves to hug and kiss her family members.  One of the cutest things that she does is push everyone together for a group hug and then sing the "I Love You" song from Barney.  She takes good care of her dolls, and gives them bottles, burps them, and takes them for walks in their stroller.  She even takes them to the doctor and examines them with a magnifying glass (haha).  I think it's time to buy her a doctor's kit.  I know she's going to be a great big sister.

Layla is also really testing her boundaries lately, which makes her simultaneously infuriating and hilarious.  It is so hard not to laugh sometimes when she shakes her finger at me and says, "No, no no!"  It's slightly less funny when she climbs out of her bed in the middle of the night and insists on sleeping ON me, not next to me.  She's a picky eater, but getting better (and rounder!).  She's still a tiny little girl.  Now, she just has the big attitude to go with the little body.

It shocks and surprises me how smart she is, too.  She is a master negotiator (when I say two books, she says, "Five??", when I ask her to have a bite of chicken, she says, "Soda?") actress (pretends to take a bite of food, says "Mmm!" and hides it in her fist) and imitator (pretending to be people, animals, forms of transportation).  One of my favorite things that she does is categorize things.  She'll name different kinds of shoes, things that you drink, her favorite foods, etc.  Her dimply smile lights up a room and she elicits big smiles from total strangers wherever we go.  Needless to say, I am completely smitten with my little Layla!