15 Months Old

Sometimes I'm surprised when Elaina says or does something that I have not taught her.  I guess she has learned lots of things from her big sister. She uses new words almost daily, it seems.  Trying to decipher what words she's picked up can be quite the challenge.  Daddy, Thirsty, and sometimes Chloë, all sound extremely similar.

She likes games.  When I put her on the changing table to change her diaper, she says "boop! boop!" It actually doesn't mean what you might think.  Somehow we invented a little game much like tickling.  I poke her round tummy and say "boop!" And then she giggles. We do it a dozen or so times before getting to her diaper.  Her giggle is the best.

She also likes to point to and name parts of her body.  Noooo! Mow! Ah-eee! and maybe my favorite, toe-tee, toe-tee, toe-tee, which of course is toesies, toesies, toesies.  Her daddy taught her to put her hands on her cheeks and push them forward and say "I'm chubby!"  Hilarious.  She also likes peek-a-boo, although sometimes her hands don't quite cover her eyes. One hand on an eyebrow, and the other on her forehead, and the game is just as fun.

She loves to say hi to people and animals.  We have lots of cats and dogs in our neighborhood, and every time she sees one, she get excited and says, "hi dog hi dog, woo woo woo!" or "cat! hi cat! Moww, moww!"


She is our very own little watch dog when it comes to bugs.  At our house, April means that the carpenter ants start showing up everywhere.  The poor kid has been bitten a couple of times, and the chompers on those things can draw blood!  So any time she sees anything that she thinks could even possibly be something belonging to the insect species, she yells "bug! BUG!" Sometimes she ends up yelling at a piece of lint, or even the dark spots in the wood grain of our floor.  We might start using the term "crying bug" instead of "crying wolf," since we never know when she actually needs rescuing.

I finally realized that her adorable mullet would work really well for pigtails.  So I tried them.  And I was right.

Waiting for Daddy to get home.

This is how excited she gets when her daddy does get home:


We've had our normal crazy weather lately.  In the last week, we've seen everything from 70 degrees and sunny, to freezing hail and snow.  We went outside a few days ago and played in the backyard even though it was chilly.

She wasn't very fond of the frigid breeze, but she does love to swing.

This was the first time one of my children fell asleep in her highchair.  It may be due to the fact that we weaned her of her binkie last month!  I snipped off the very tip of it, and every day would cut off a tiny bit more, until there wasn't much left.  Then we were just done with it.  The first few days without it were a little rough, and she kept asking for her "bean-tee," but now she is sleeping like a champ. I'm glad we decided to get rid of it now.  We waited much longer with Chloë, and I think it actually developed some poor sleeping habits on her part.

The girls helping me with some Spring cleaning.

 Elaina likes to snuggle and hug things.  Even her sippy cup.  She was patting it while saying "oh bay-bee, oh bay-bee."  When she isn't sleeping or snuggling her sippy cup, she usually eats pretty well.  Her favorite foods are cheerios and soy milk, PB&J, and fresh bread.  In the last few weeks, we've started giving her food with tiny amounts of dairy, and she has been doing well.  I tried giving her a small bowl of yogurt, and that didn't go well.  We'll try that again in a few months.  But for now, she's not totally dairy-free anymore, which is a blessing.

After playing in the dirt, Elaina had some pretzels for a snack. No, they were not chocolate covered pretzels.  Yes, I believe that ingesting a little dirt is good for children.

She is walking everywhere!

It has been three weeks since she's used crawling for mobility.  My little baby isn't a baby anymore.  She's a toddler.  I'm still trying to adjust.  I don't have a baby and a toddler anymore.  I have a toddler and big kid.

Speaking of which, it is such a joy watching their relationship develop.  They are very kind to each other, and both will say "thank you" when the other shares.  Chloë just loves her little sister sooo much, that sometimes her affection is too much for Elaina to handle.  She then lets out a little warning squeal, and I tell Chloë to give her sister some space.  It's such a good "problem" to have.  They play little games together, often involving tickling.  If Elaina wakes up before Chloë does, she gets really excited when she finally hears footsteps. "Low-ee! Low-ee!" she says excitedly, and there are lots of hugs and kisses.

Her teeth are still coming in in all sorts of weird order.  Her two upper molars and two lateral incisors have broken through, but still no signs of those four middle teeth.

With her left lateral incisor dangling in the corner of her mouth, I think she looks like a cartoon character when she smiles.

Here's what Chloë was up to when she was this age.