18 Months! No! Mine!

She's finally all mine! er.. I mean ours! 18 months and no more baby payment! She is all paid off. I no longer have to come up with little snarky notes to write in the "For:" line on the check. Now I want a new car. I've earned it.

18 months is exciting because I can finally stop sounding ridic by telling people her age in months. A year and  a half is so much more respectable, though my reprieve is only one month long. I'm at a loss for what to do with 19 months.

18 months is also apparently when the language explosion happens. She says and understands things that I've never taught her. It's amazing what she's picked up on her own. The Only Child Syndrome has started as well, much to Trav's chagrin. She's very aware of what's hers and what's not. For a while, everything was "mine." She'll point at things, grab things, and run away with things, yelling "Mine!" I'm impressed. I don't know when she's ever heard that word, since she's never around other children and does not have to compete for toys. My parents don't say it to her, and Travis maintains that he's never said that word in his life, which might be true. He is disturbed by this and tells her not to say it. I just tell her that of course it's hers. Who else would it belong to? Now instead of everything being hers, she will go around and point to things and say "Momma's" or "Dada's." I'm proud that she understands the possessive use of words, and I find value in her knowing what belongs to her and what doesn't.

After stealing these balls, they became hers 

I'm very excited about her language development, if you couldn't already tell. Something else that I've found interesting is her use of the word "and." "And" is not a word that you just sit down and teach children, but she seems to have picked it up. If she's naming things off in a series, she will say "and" before the last item. For example, we ask her what she wants to take to Grandma's every morning. She says, "Lamb, Book, and Night-Night" (her blanket). How does she know to do that? I'm mystified. Baby Genius!

What I'm not so excited about is "No." Here's a typical conversation with Trinity:
- As she's stuffing her face with food -
Me: Do you like my chicken?
T: No
Me: Well you sure ate a lot of it
T: No
Me: Would you like some more?
T: No
Me: OK, are you all done?
T: No
Me: Well let's go take a bath
T: No
Me: Do you know what no means?
T: No

Ahhhhhh!! It drives me crazy. The weird thing is that, while she can say "Yes," she chooses not to and instead says "ooooooh" all excited when you actually say something she agrees with. She's a weird kid.

I'm getting tired of typing. Here's some pictures.

Trinity loved her first trip to the ocean

Guido did not

Probably my favoritest picture ever

If this doesn't melt your heart, you're a cold, sad bastard

This is how be we both feel about potty training

Oh, something else. My dad cut her hair. I'll say it again in case that didn't sink in. My DAD gave her a HAIRCUT! WTF?!? He watched her by himself for half a day when Travis and I went to the Duck game this last Saturday. Sometime during those few hours when she wasn't asleep, he thought, "hmmm what should we do?" Well, the little hair clips must have been too complicated. Pulling the hair to one side and pushing down on the clip was just too much. The only thing that made sense to him at this moment was taking out a pair a KITCHEN SCISSORS from the knife block and CUTTING HER HAIR! I think he must have tried to be professional and wet it down beforehand, because it shrunk up and now she looks like this:

I spent all day Sunday trying to figure out what happened to her hair. I didn't know if it was new hair that was trying to grow in, or if she just slept on it weird. I didn't think my dad giving her an impromptu haircut was even an option. Finally I gave up and called to ask if he did something to her hair. His response was that he only cut a couple strands, and he didn't think I would notice. .... I have no words.

We're going to pretend this didn't happen. And then we are going to document her "first" professional haircut with the saved locks of hair and everything. This better not ruin Christmas pictures!