Saturday, March 29, 2014

15 months

It dawned on me recently that I have a toddler.
An almost 15-month-old toddler.
I can't believe she was ever a teeny tiny baby.



Anyway, this is what 15 months looks like around here.

Taking ice cubes out of the ice cube and putting them into cups.

and playing with pasta. [this is one of our go-to activities while i make dinner. she likes to be in the kitchen near me, and this usually keeps her entertained for a while. when she loses interest, i pause and have her help me clean it all up... which sometimes perks her interest again. totally worth the 5 minutes of clean up.]

we tried playdough. she didn't really get it. 

she does get fabric though. i keep a small drawer of fabric scraps she is allowed to open and play with whenever. she LOVES to play with fabric. just like her mommy :) 

she really loves reading lately. she used to only love turning the pages, but now, she'll wait and listen to the whole page... well, at least 50% of the time :) we have such a great collection of board books - most have been gifts. and the more she likes reading, the more i'd like to start collecting some more non-board books. i might start a book of the month budget where we get to get one new book per month. 

we went through a brief transition from two naps to one. i accidentally discovered one day that if i woke her after 30 minutes in the morning, she'd nap for 2 hours or more in the afternoon. bam!! it was hard every day. it breaks the oldest rule in the book, never wake a sleeping baby. but, it worked for us. she's down to one longer afternoon one now. hallelujah! 

she loves going 'bye-bye.' when we come home, she mostly walks on her own from the car (street parking) to the door. she gets very excited to be walking outside. and i'm pretty sure the only thing that prevents a tantrum every time we pass by the swings is that she gets to go up the stairs by herself... fun for all 3 flights. haha. this preggo momma can't carry her as much anymore.

the trash is a 'no' unless i ask her to throw something away for me. while this is somewhat confusing & took a while to learn, she seems to understand the difference now.

sometimes we have friends over to play.

one of her other favorite thing to do lately is put these cylinder blocks (from a different toy) into an old wipes box. seriously, mommas, if you do not have a wipes box to play with, save the next one. she will do this over and over and over. and sometimes i'll pull out something else small (dried pasta, tiny pieces of playdough, alphabet blocks, etc...) and she'll drop those in. 

first she opens it by pressing the button. (when she figured that out, it was open and close open and close for many many many minutes... many times a day.)


then she picks up a cylinder block and pushes it in. then she closes the top and repeats until all 4 or 5 cylinder blocks are in. she then brings the container to me and signs 'please' for me to open it and get all the blocks out. and she does it over again. once she did this for 30 minutes. seriously. 

she realized how fun stickers are. we got a mailer with a small sheet of smiley stickers in it. she peeled each one off and (clearly) stuck it on her jammies. when the sheet was gone, there were tears. disappointment and good things sometimes coming to an end - life lessons learned young. 

occasionally, i'm nostalgic for moments like these. it seems like a distant, fuzzy memory, even though it was only 15 months ago. 

but, my little 15 month old toddler is fun. busy, and sometimes often tiring, but fun. 
i love my sweet Adelyn Joy & i love my [growing] family. 

p.s. here's a flashback to 6 months, 8 months and 10 months