16 Months

My little girl is growing up. She'll be 16 months old tomorrow. Last month, I said that she had officially started walking, but that she was still hesitant to do so on our hard wood floors. The day after I wrote that post, we were out doing some shopping, and Chloë decided she was tired of the stroller. So she walked up and down the aisles, quite pleased with herself. Since that day, she has been very confident in her walking abilities. She has an adorable stubby-legged walk, and gets around really well.

Speaking of stubby legs, the sizes she wears in clothes in kind of hilarious. Just recently does she fit into her jeans that are size 6-12 months. Because she has a long torso, she usually needs 18-24 month size shirts to cover her belly. But, she's skinny enough that she can still wear dresses size 3-6 months as tunics. So basically, she wears all sizes of clothing these days.

Her new words this month include Chloë: "coe-ee," coffee: "cah-yee" hot: "aht," eat: "eat," cake: "cake," tickle: "tey-ah," chin: "nin," forehead: "ah-yahd," Bella: "Beh-bah," Eva: "Ah-yah," Betsy: "Bets." It's getting to the point where she says so much I can't keep track of what's new. Since she is our little parrot and repeats everything, I only "count" words that she uses without prompting.

She loves playing with Bella and Eva. They really get along so well. Chloë and Eva invented a game a couple of weeks ago, where they sit side by side on the step two steps from the bottom of the stairs, and bounce up and down laughing hysterically at one another. I'm amazed that such simple things can be so much fun. And shaking the bars of the crib is apparently a great game too.

They also like to stir up mischief together. I was watching Eva for a couple of hours yesterday, and they were playing so well together, and then I realized things were very quiet. So I went into Chloë's room, and discovered the two of the playing with and emptying bottles baby shampoo, baby lotion, and diaper rash ointment. The baby shampoo was everywhere. At least it was just shampoo. But the thing that gets me the most is that my child was sitting there, running her finger through the puddles of shampoo, licking it off her finger, and going back for more. But she won't drink milk. I just don't understand. Needless to say, I think it is time to reevaluate the location of some of the things in our home. Our trash can, for example. She found the coffee ground puck from my espresso, sitting nicely on a pile of trash, and must have thought it looked tasty. She came around the corner with a look of displeasure on her face. As well as coffee grounds.


Last week we decided to introduce her to the fact that there's a baby sister in Mama's tummy. I know she doesn't really understand, but it is so sweet when she kisses or pats my tummy. We'll tell her to kiss Mama, then Daddy, then Baby Sister. And she does. And it's so cute.

This girl loves to laugh. She loves to be tickled. And she looooves being chased by her Daddy.


She also reeeeally loves her pacifier. But since we've established that it's only for "night night," she sometimes decides that she's "seepy seepy" and asks to go "nie-nie" just so she can cuddle with Mama and suck on her binkie for a few minutes. Then she pulls the binkie out of her mouth, hands it to me, and is off to play some more.

When she does sleep, she still prefers to be next to (or on top of) Mama or Daddy.

She has been doing this thing lately where she randomly uses both her index fingers to plug her ears. She'll do it for a minute or two, sometimes releasing for a few seconds. It must be funny muting everything.

We've seen some very defiant behavior this month. Not that we're surprised, but it still catches us a little off-guard when we give her a basic command ("come here," "put it down," etc.), and we can tell that she's making a decision to do the opposite and disobey. Sometimes it's hard not to laugh at how silly her tiny rebellion seems. For the most part, we're constantly impressed with how much she understands, and how eager she is to obey and please us.

She gets around really well on her Radio Flyer these days.


She has started doing this thing where she has a finger in her mouth when she's chewing her food. I don't understand how it can be comfortable, but I guess there's sort of a gap where her canine teeth haven't come in yet. So we're working on manners. She's a pretty good eater, but isn't a huge fan of vegetables (we're working on that, too). And she still doesn't like milk. She'll have it with her cereal, but that's it. So, every morning, she has cheerios with some half-and-half mixed with whole milk. This month she had her first doughnut, and (surprise!) loved it. I bought some of those mini doughnuts covered in powdered sugar, and she sure had a great time eating a couple and getting powdered sugar everywhere.

Last but not least, this kid has some serious dance moves. I love it.