Eleanora | 18 Months

Little miss is almost officially a year & a half! Honestly, we’ve felt like she’s 2 for quite some time now. She is SO BUSY…but I love every minute, most of the time! Haha! She’s growing so big so quickly that I wanted to write down some of the sweet things she’s doing lately. (This is way overdue…aka, LONG!)

Elle is quite the talker lately. She jabbers all day long and has started a few 2 word sentences. Favorites are “Bye bye Daddy!” “Hi Dog!” and “Night Night Mama!” She can say all sorts of things now, but my favorite is “again” at the moment. I cannot adequately describe the sweetness of our mornings together. Cuddles and milk are a necessity to start the day off right. I’m usually still in my devotional chair, and I either read to her or we listen to worship music. My heart melts in a million pieces when I hug her tight, kiss, or tickle her and she says “again” a dozen times. My mama heart can take it. She also loves to sign “please” and “thank you.” Often times I’ll ask her to give me something and she then signs “thank you” until I sign it back! Haha! I guess I have to start practicing what I preach.

She LOVES books still. We read at least 12x per day. She loves pointing to the colors and animals. I say “where is the lion” or “where is the color yellow” and she’ll point to it. If there is a bird or dog on the page, then that is just a winner all around. Well, she really loves any animals! We color every day. She’s so particular about her coloring and insists on holding the crayons with the correct hand-grip at the very top of the crayon. (I have never gripped pens/pencils correctly, so she didn’t get that from me!) “Bubuuss!” or bubbles, rather, are a fun new discovery as well. Since the weather has been so nice we blow bubbles and pick flowers a lunch. We also love to play the piano and guitar. She loves to “sing” aka vocal warmups, and play the harmonica. She’s quite dramatic with it! We have a dance party almost every day too. I feel a little bit bad that I never play any of the kid songs for her, but she doesn’t love them! She likes worship music…and Taylor Swift. Haha! It makes her so happy when TS comes on. She breaks out into some great moves. Ha!

I never want to forget the way she plays hide-and-seek. I’ll count and she goes and puts her head up against a wall…like I can’t see her. My favorite is when she hides behind the sheer curtains in her room…obviously watching me “look” for her. Haha! Another great spot is behind doors where she can look through the crack or underneath pillows. These really are the days I’ll cherish forever. I also never want to forget how she goes and steals my shoes all the time and will trot around the house in them. She likes to steal my jewelry too. Her little “Ooooh, pretty!” inflections are the sweetest! When she is excited her little “ah, aaah! oooh!” is so cute! Sometimes when she wakes up, she’ll grab her hair and inquisitively hold out her hands and say, “bow?” She does have to wear one to keep her hair out of her face, but hopefully I’m not creating a monster with the bow situation! ha! Sometimes we change bows, per her request, 3x a day. Sometimes she wears her shoes around the house, just because she likes wearing them. I can’t say she didn’t get that from me, since I’m usually dressed with shoes on everyday too. (If you have clothes, why not wear them, right? This is also due to my lack of sweatpants…and her lack of them too.)

As for growth, food, sleep and such…E is a BIG girl. And by big, I mean tall. She can open doors, reach almost anything on the bathroom counter, climb up on the couch and into the tub. Thank heavens she hasn’t tried to climb out of her crib yet, but I know those days are numbered. We’ve been in 18-24 mo. tops and dresses for a while now because of how tall she is! We’ll see what the dr says at her appointment next week, but I know she’s the size of a 2 year old. Elle still eats anything, but she’s gotten more picky and prefers carbs to anything else. Broccoli and applesauce are go-tos. Anything she can feed herself is golden. If she can’t she’s not very interested. She loves to feed Beary too. I’ll catch her doing the airplane and choochoo moves we do to get her to eat to Mr. Beary! It’s so funny! As for sleep, we’ve transitioned out of her morning nap most days, but we still implement “quiet time.” Sometimes she naps, sometimes she doesn’t, but at minimum she is playing quietly in her crib. I am SO THANKFUL she sleeps so well and likes morning rest. Otherwise I’d have to figure something else out for work. Right now, I don’t need tons of extra in-home help and that has been so nice! We play hard when she’s up, and then I work like crazy when she’s down. Not every day is according to the schedule, but we don’t worry about that too much. I try to stay ahead enough to make room for her off days.

Her nighttime routine with Daddy is her absolute favorite part of the day, at least I’m pretty sure. We are at church or have something most nights of the week, and we usually get back just in time for bed. We try to wait up until Daddy can make it back for the routine. She loves that he flies her to her room, lands in her spot and pulls out all the animals one by one to kiss/ hug her and be silly. Then she gets all tucked in and we say goodnight. I love that she loves it so much. She points to photos of Jonathan and says, “daddy!” all day long. I guess I tell Siri to call Jonathan a lot too, because she also excitedly exclaims “DADDY!!!” when I say “call Jonathan Blair” and knows she gets to talk to him. She also knows were Daddy is a lot, because the moment we pull up to church she exclaims “Daddy!!!” as well. She’ll run inside to go look for him, and by now, the place is her second home! So funny!

I can’t say that having a child isn’t crazy a lot of times. I definitely get stressed out with everything on my plate and often have trouble keeping up with all the projects and taking care of her. Our schedules are nuts, but I never want her to feel that. She is my calm most days. I’m not good at turning my work, goal-focused, idea-generating brain “off” but somehow I can when I’m with her most of the time. I can just be her mama when she’s up during the day and I love it. We clean the house, play, cook, run errands…she’s really my best little buddy. Sure, she causes me a lot of stress sometimes when she’s having a bad day or sick but it’s not the norm. I’ve been so overcome with thankfulness that I get to raise this sweet, curly-headed, blue-eyed, outgoing girl. I love watching her personality come out. I’m so proud of her already! It’s been so amazing to start to teach her things now that she can understand more. We’ve started talking to her about Jesus and she’ll try to say something like “Sus” and point to the sky. I’ve always wondered if babies know things, or see things we can’t.

Anyway, I love this girl! Life is NOT easy, but it’s been the best year and a half! I’ve probably grown more than she has, and that is saying something! I never want to take one moment for granted, but also keep my eyes on eternity. What a balance right? She’s so important, but so is living out God’s purposes. Ultimately, I want her childhood to be beautiful, but not at the expense of NOT doing what I was called to do because it’s not easy to do it with her.

So I’m going for it with every part of my soul, my sweet Eleanora Rose! I’m living life with every single bit of passion I have, doing the hard things, getting up early, staying up late – all to focus on eternal things and push towards the prize. I want to be your example. I want to show you Jesus. I don’t want to waste any bit of life. I won’t make excuses, and I certainly won’t use you. Making disciples and following Jesus never had a “but I have children” clause, so I’m not putting it there! I want to show you how to have a big, generous heart for people, my sweet girl! That may mean that sometimes you’ll miss your nap or I’ll be talking with someone else during your play time. I’m not going to wait until you’re bigger to serve, to make a difference. I want you to grow up knowing I love you, but that you are not the summation of my world – Jesus is my master. My love for you feels so immense, but I love Jesus more. The best way I can love you, is to love Him first. The best way I can help you grow, is to grow myself in Him first. I hope I will live out what real faith looks like in front of your eyes. I’m being the best mama I know to be by ultimately giving God’s Kingdom my all. You are one of my greatest gifts, and a constant reminder to look to Jesus. I’m tired, I’m so tired, but my heart is so full.

And now the images…my sweet girl in her natural element.