Adriana Leigh Herman is 21 Months Old

On Tuesday, Adriana entered what is likely her last full month as an only child.  I know she can't possibly grasp the major change that is about to occur, but she does seem to be excited about being a big sister.  She is ready to move out of her baby room.  She loves her big girl room.  She loves to play in her room, pick out her clothes each day, and sleep in her big girl bed.  She thinks of it as a punishment to have to go to her crib.  If she ever has trouble getting to sleep, I remind her that she will have to go to her crib, and she calms down to go to sleep very quickly.

She also seems excited when we talk about the baby.  She will run up to my belly and kiss it.  I think my belly has gotten 15 kisses already today.  We went to storytime at the library today, and there were some babies there.  When she saw one of the babies, she turned to me and said, "baby."  Then she came over and kissed my belly three times.  The other mom thought it was the cutest thing!

Adriana is learning to play with friends.  She has a friend in our neighborhood named Mia, who is about 3 months older than Adriana.  We saw Mia Monday and today.  She loves to hold hands with Mia, and will grab Mia's hand without being prompted.  She then had to tell her Daddy all about Mia, and she talks about sharing with Mia often.  She also met a boy named Creighton at the pool.  He shared his pool toys, and Adriana thought that was the greatest thing ever!  Whenever we go to the pool, she asks me if Creighton will be there.  She also asks if Zeke (and Connor & Quentin) can go to the pool or park with us.  She is definitely social, and I think she will really like preschool when she starts going in September.

Intellectually, I think Adriana is doing very well.  She remembers things that happened a month (or longer) ago.  She is doing very well with her colors.  She knows all of the basic colors (red, yellow, blue, green, orange, purple, black, white, brown, and gray).  She can tell you that red means stop and green means go when she sees traffic lights. She does not like red lights at all! I call her Little Scott when she gets mad about sitting in traffic.She can identify a circle everytime she sees one.  Now, we are working on mastering a square and a triangle.  I'm trying to focus on square, but we talk about triangles when we see them.  Adriana can tell you when she is holding two objects, and occasionally when she is holding three.  We were especially impressed with "three" because no one sat down and taught her that, she just picked it up.  I haven't quizzed Adriana on her letters in a little while, but she still excitedly points out the letters she knows on a regular basis.

Apparently, Adriana has been blessed with her mother's childhood temper.  She has started throwing little temper tantrums when she doesn't get her way.  We are working on getting this under control...

Adriana's favorite activities right now are music (including her Kindermusik class), jumping, hiding in the sliding door curtain, "swimming" in the baby pool, playing with bubbles, and watching her friends (Mickey Mouse, Elmo, and Monsters Inc.).

She loves exclamations right now.  This started with "oh man!"  She now says, "oh great!," "oh dear!," "oh boy!," "oh crap!" (we're trying to get away from this one), "oh Sulley!" (from Monsters Inc.), and "oh broccoli!"  She doesn't quite get that the last two aren't normal sayings, but she likes them.

We are very proud of our little girl, and we are excited to see what a great big sister you are going to be!

I'm a little off-balance these days.
I almost fell over when I knelt down to take this picture, and she thought it was hilarious!