Dear Ryleigh,

Wow, in just 3 days you will be 21 months old! Where has the time gone? Pretty soon we will be having your 2nd birthday party. I will be the mother of a 2 year old!? You are such an amazing little girl. Evey day is a new adventure and you have taught me so much. Here I am supposed to be teaching you, and your teaching me.
You know what you want and what you don't want. That's for sure. You make it known that everyone else knows what you want as well. You have formed a very special bond with your "dubba" (blanket for those of you that are not fluent in Ryleigh yet). "Dubba" goes everywhere with us and is very rarely out of your sight. I'm trying to get you to take "little dubba" when we leave the house and keeping your big dubba at home. Sometimes you go for it, sometimes you put your little foot down and make it very clear that's not going to happen...hehe.
Your eating is improving some, but its not the greatest. Getting you to try new things doesn't happen very often. Usually it only happens when you initiate it. Most of the time you find out that what you have tasted, you actually like! Imagine that...lol For breakfast you eat things like Cheerios, Maple Brown sugar oatmeal, cinn. toast and a cup of milk. Lunch and dinner are usually just grazing here and there. When you tell me your hungry Ill give you a healthy choice like fruit, cottage cheese, string cheese, buttered noddles, mac n cheese, spaghetti or peas with butter and sprinkle cheese. Those are your favorites.
Your learning so much in the last month or so. Some of the things we are working on are: numbers, shapes, colors and animal sounds. You understand the concept of counting, but everything is 2 with you. You will through your bean bags in the bucket and say 2, 2, 2, 2, 2 for all of them. Its a work in progress I guess. Your colors, you know Yellow, brown, pink and green the best. Every once in a while you will get some others like purple, blue and red. Shapes, you know Heart, star, moon (crescent shape) and circle. We are working on Triangle and square also, but your having a hard time with those. Animal sounds you know, Cat (that's my favorite one you do), duck, cow, horse, dog, sheep and frog.
You love cartoons! Your favorite is Oswald. I have no idea why, but you love that octopus! You other favorites are Dora, Diego and backyardigans.
Your speech is amazing! You know exactly how to get your point across as to what you want. Your putting 3 words together now also. You are so polite too. You always say thank you. It makes me even more proud of you to hear you say it, cause it means that I'm doing something right as a mom. I love you more than you know. One day when your a mom and you look at your child and your hear explodes with love, then you will know how much I love you...