22 Months

Well, another month has come and gone, and this one was a busy one. Zooey is now 22 months old, just two short months away from being TWO! We spent most of the last month at my mom's, and one thing I can say about Zooey is she just brightens a room. We could've been having a stressful or emotional day, and Zooey would come in with her huge smile and cute antics and all those yucky feelings would just melt away. It was and is inevitable that she'd see me cry, and one time when she did, I told her I was sad because Grandma was sick. She grabbed my face, pulled me toward her and gave me a big kiss. Such a sweet, empathetic girl is my Zooey!

I'm not sure how much she weighs right now, but I'm guessing it's getting pretty close to 30lbs. She's also getting taller and leaning out. She can fit in some 24 month/2T clothes now, although she's still mostly in 18 month stuff.

Zooey loves to play with water and got into trouble a few times over at my parent's house for playing in the dog bowl and getting herself and the floor all wet. The video above was a morning about a week and a half ago when Rey brought Sarah's dogs over to the house for a visit, and we let Zooey go crazy with the water. She also loves animals, and her and Oreo (Sarah's biggest dog) were just following each other around - very cute!

She's becoming quite the artist, and she now tries to copy me by attempting to color in the lines when we color together. She watches me, then she starts inside and then colors a huge rainbow of colors all over the page. She's become quite a Grandpa's girl, and they are close buddies now after being over at his house so much. She'll often grab his hand to follow her and do what she wants to do after Mommy tells her no. I'm sure it's hard for him to resist that, but he does. :) After not being able to leave the house a lot, she's also become more fond of TV, something she kind of ignored before. She likes to sit and cuddle on the couch and watch Caillou or the Sesame Street Good Morning show on Sprout. Zooey also loves to dance and sing. It's very cute! She's even started to wiggle her little bottom when the music comes on. Although this isn't a habit, she took her first nap with mommy in the big bed, and it was a sweet time of cuddles.

She is still feisty as ever and definitely lets you know when she's not happy with something. She also gets very proud of herself when she obeys and is commended on it.

I love my little girl so much, and I'll say it again for the thousandth time, God knew we would need her smiles, joy, love and silliness in this time, because she certainly balances out the grief with immeasurable happiness and love.