Oh, 18 months. Full-blown toddlerhood. You are killing me. Sometimes with cuteness, but also with stress.

Let’s just get the bad stuff out of the way. All of a sudden we have extended tantrums. I’m talking nonstop screaming from the time she gets home – won’t play, throws food in our faces, screams in the car, screams in the bath, violently throwing her body around – until the time she goes to sleep.

I know that this is normal and will pass, but it doesn’t make it any less stressful. I think the most frustrating part is that she is perfectly good and happy in the morning and all day at daycare, and on weekends too. So it’s not that anything is wrong, or hurting, and it’s nothing we can “fix.”

My best guess as to the reason is that the transition between being so busy and stimulated at daycare to calmness and resting at home is difficult when she is also at a point in her life when she is developing so much. Right now how we’re dealing with it, other than whining on Twitter, is to start out by giving her 100% of our attention (this usually helps somewhat, until it doesn’t) and beyond that just keep her from hurting herself and put her to bed early.

Okay, so some nights are terrible. But the rest of the time she is pretty much a total gem. She’s learning to speak right now and isn’t that great at it yet – everything sounds the same to me – except I can understand bye-bye, what’s this, hi, no, yeah, uh-oh, mama, dada, baby, yay. She has a lisp.

She understands most of what we say and can follow directions. For example, she feeds the dogs if we give her their bowls to set out (but then she wants to play with their food). She helps me with the laundry. She’ll go get something I ask for.

She can point to her belly button, nose, mouth, eyes, head, and toes.

She is very into dancing. Her signature move is to bounce and twirl her arms like the “traveling” sign in basketball. She doesn’t even need music, but if she hears some it’s like a reflex. Girlfriend can’t help herself.

She weighs 25 pounds, 14 ounces and is 32.75 inches tall (around 75th percentile for both). She wears 24-month or 2T clothes and size 4.5 shoes.

She has five teeth and is working on two upper molars.

We are growing her hair out and it’s in a middle stage. It is thick and top-heavy and kind of crazy. She still won’t keep any bows or clips in. She gets the best bedhead ever.

She puts our phones to her ear and starts to babble. She’ll do the same thing with anything that looks like a phone.

She has a doll and knows how to give it a bottle.

She’s a busy little bee. Her favorite game is to take things out and put things in – it doesn’t really matter what the thing is (blocks, hair bows, purse contents, etc). Even better if she gets to hand them to someone and take them back. She is starting to copy our actions. The other day I was blowing my nose and she pulled off the tiniest corner of tissue, held it to her nose, and blew.

She has finally gotten interested in books and her favorite is a board book of nursery rhymes. She says bye bye whenever she closes one.

Jasper is her favorite stuffed animal, a jaguar that David got her on a random shopping trip. She laughs when we ask where he is and then she will go find him. She frequently asks for him and carries him around.

Some of her favorite foods are eggs, yogurt dippers, and bananas. She’s not into vegetables and loves anything sweet – oy. She still nurses in the morning and falls asleep nursing almost every night. She is not the slightest bit interested in weaning. When she had roseola for a week over the holidays she nursed a lot more and my milk supply adjusted within a couple of days which I think is so cool.

She likes giving fish kisses and is more affectionate than ever. She wants to be held a lot. Her spontaneous hugs melt me.

So, 18 months. Sometimes I want to put her up for adoption, but it’s not all bad. In fact, it’s still pretty great. :)