eighteen months young.

We went to Carly's 18 month check-up today.

After the royal disaster that was her 15 month appointment,

I was more than apprehensive.

I decided to

a) be outrageously happy the whole time to keep Carly un-scared.

b) bring toys from home so she had something familiar.

c) bring a few Reece's Cups in my purse for back-up.

Luckily the Reese's Cups were unnecessary and Carly held up well,

only whimpering slightly when the nurse took her temp

and whining subtly when the doctor checked her hips.

Success.

I celebrated with GF mac and cheese.

As for Carly?

Well of course the doctor found she is medically

exceptional in every way and actually a genius.

We should expect to make a lot of money off her.

And she weights 24 lbs 8 oz

(she stood on the big kid scale. tear.)

and is somewhere between 32 and 33 inches tall

(you try getting her to hold still to measure exactly).

Carly has actually been eating occasionally.

She seems to like actual food.

We've been giving her like tomato pieces, crackers, bits of cheese, fruit, you know like beginners table food, since she started on real food.

I think she is so over that.

For lunch she just had broccoli alfredo penne.

Diva.

[she also enjoys a chocolate-frosted cupcake]

We've also found she loves clementines.

As do I.

Our house smells like an orange grove a great deal of the time.

But one day we let her eat 5 clementines.

We had serious diaper repercussions.

So I've been limiting her intake.

Her vocabulary is ever-expanding.

I wish I knew every word she says, but a few new ones:

Dora

bean

scriptures

JoJo (her puppy)

Rex (her other puppy)

Red (her bear)

towel

stop

Oh dear, does she know "stop".

The first time she said it was a crack-up.

I was trying to make dinner and she does this thing where she comes in between me and the counter and pushes me away from the counter. She wants me to stop cooking and pay attention to her. But the family gots to eat, right? So I was saying "just a minute, Carly" as she was pushing me and she looked up at me with her most serious face and said "Stop! Stop! Stop!". I about died laughing; it was the cutest thing. She won that round. I stopped dinner and played with her instead. How could I not?

[Miss Carly exactly one year ago today]

Towel is her current favorite word, of course.

She will hold up her dishtowel and with all the pleasure a little girl can muster say "TOWEL!".

She also says "uh oh, towel!" when she drops it.

And one day she had a towel in each had.

I said "you have two towels!"

She proceeded to march around chanting

"TWO TOWELS! TWO TOWELS! TWO TOWELS!"

I'm afraid the dishtowels aren't going anywhere.

She is connecting ideas.

Once I turned the car on before we got in to warm it up.

She saw and smelled the exhaust, and said "stinky".

(She is now terrified of the exhaust pipe).

But we were driving and and she can see out her window.

A truck in front of us to the side had exhaust coming out

and she pointed to it and said "stinky".

Its amazing to watch her understand things.

[checking out the puddles from the recent thaw]

Carly is all routine.

I mean, she lives by routine, and if I mess it up, she lets me know.

One of the things she really loves and keeps Chris and I honest on is scriptures and prayer before bed. After her bath and brushing her hair and teeth, she goes into our room saying "scripts. scripts." We read scriptures. She and daddy sit on the floor and "follow along" (aka, flip the pages all over) while I read. If I am too slow to start reading, she will come over and point to the open page like "get reading, mom". After scriptures we kneel and Carly stands. She folds her arms and one of us starts praying. As soon as Chris and I have our eyes closed she promptly comes over to us and peeks under our bowed head and gives kisses. After the prayer, she says "Ay-man!". Then she folds her arms and bows her head again and says her own prayer:

"Goigoigoigoigoigoigoi".

Then she looks up at us and we say "Amen!".

This is repeated a few times.

Then its bedtime.

Carly made it through all of nursery on Sunday, and came out with a little hand-out that she had colored a few scribbles on.

Her very first church hand-out.

I almost cried.

[see. told you she is a diva.]

She is delightful times a million.