18 months

Naomi turned 18 months on Saturday. That's 1.5 years old! Hard to believe we have a toddler living in the house. Gone are the days where Austin and I would turn to each other and say, "you know, she's so quiet and sleeps all the time, sometimes I forget we have a baby". This past month has been incrediblly exciting and yet incredibly challenging as Naomi becomes more and more independent and more aware of her needs and desires.
She can understand almost everything we say to her, and can resond in 1, 2 or 3 word phrases.
She's become very picky with what she will and won't eat...there are days when all she'll eat is rice, and will keep saying "rice rice rice rice, pleeeease rice!!!" She also went through a strawberry phase, a blueberry phase (bebees and boobies, oh and by the way, eyeglasses are asses).
She absolutely loves to dance, as soon as I pick her up from school she starts moving her arms and asking for music, particularly "Down" (by jay sean). yes we have Wei family dance parties everynight before bed now.
She's a great imitator, and mimics everything we do. eeks time to be careful here! She even knows how to use our iphones and can switch from app to app, and knows how to operate the games we have on the phones for her. She also knows how to say iphone (i pone, sounds almost like how she says apple).
She adores her grandpa and has given him his own nickname. In chinese she would normally call him "Gong Gong", but when she was just learning to talk she couldn't say G's, so she called him "Do Do" and the name has just stuck. Terribly cute.
I used to think Naomi wasn't the cuddly or affectionate type baby since when she was little, and you tried to hug her, she'd stiff arm you in the neck. These days, she loves to give you unsolicited kisses and hugs, and her hugs are real embraces now. Best thing ever.
I suppose the biggest change in Naomi this month has been her vocabulary explosion. The number of words she knows now has easily tripled. My mouth literally dropped open the day she asked me for my iPhone. And when we put up our christmas tree, she ran right up to it and pointed at the tree topper and proclaimed, "STAR!!".

With Christmas and the New year coming up, I'm excited to have some time off with Naomi and Austin. I'm utterly amazed at how much my little girl can learn in a day, and it makes me sad to think that I'm missing a lot of these new milestones while she's at daycare. Although I'm grateful we've found a center where the teachers adore naomi and naomi adores her teachers.