The Alvarez Family: Savannah is 17 Months!

This is been one of the most interesting/challenging months that my sweet Savannah has given me. I recently read that the Terrible 2s actually starts around the 15th month and can last until almost the 4th year---ugh, this is probably information that I could have lived without knowing. This past month we experienced our fair share of temper tantrums, outbursts, and aggressive acts. I realize she is simply "declaring her independence", so say the "experts", but she's also driving me bonkers! The funny part of this whole situation is that immediately after Savannah has a fit, she gets this funny look on her face and you often can't help but laugh out loud. Fortunately instead of her getting more mad because we're laughing at her, she usually starts cracking up, too. I'm not sure how I'm ever going to discipline this girl!

My Sweet Savannah Grace at 17 Months

Now on to the brighter side of the past month.....
~Savannah is able to identify most common and some not so common animals and their corresponding sounds.
~She is finally talking by using some real words (please, ball, more, yes, no, up, step, shoes, socks, Beat (aka Fresh Beat), grapes, shhhhhh (aka be quiet), eyes, nose, teeth, juice, cheese)
~She has a funny gesture that she does every time she says "please". The story behind it comes from Oscar always begging her to give him a kiss. He always points to his cheek and says "pleeeeeease" so now whenever Savannah says "please", she always points to her cheek. And she's definitely not asking for a kiss.
~She has become much more agreeable about having her picture taken and she now will even say "cheese".
~She LOVES going to the Stay-and-Play at my gym. A couple of weeks ago she was the first child to be left in there one morning and she proudly walked in, sat at the table with the 2 helpers, and pulled out her snack and milk. I gave her a kiss and told her to be good and she turned towards me, said "okay", and waved bye-bye. Too funny! Now she blows me kisses whenever I leave her. She's getting to be such a big girl much too fast.
~She has 2 incisor teeth currently popping in. These have been giving her more trouble than any of the other teeth including the molars.
~She got her first black eye and busted lip all in the same weekend. We obviously had a little too much rough housing on the play set those first few days. She has since learned to watch where she's running.
~I have come to the conclusion that the skin issue she has been battling off and on is due to a food allergy. I think Savannah is allergic to strawberries. Not a severe allergy but one that causes her to break out in a rash if she eats them too much. Strawberry yogurt and jelly don't seem to cause a reaction but eating too many plain strawberries make the hives appear. As soon as I cut them out of her diet, she cleared up totally.
~One of our new bath time rituals involves spraying hair detangler on her hair and brushing it in. She absolutely loves it! I guess that's a good thing because once the top of head becomes as frizzy as the back, we're going to be going through a lot of detangler.
~She has learned how to blow bubbles with a bubble wand and it's now our favorite thing to do outside.
~We finally broke down and bought Savannah her toddler bed. I was hoping we could skip over it but after her incident of climbing out of her crib a couple of months ago, I decided it was better to be safe than sorry. She's not sleeping overnight in it but she does occasionally take naps in it. I figured I would slowly let her get used to it before it becomes permanent.