Sweet and Tart

LC is 15 months!

The three months between LC’s first birthday and the day she turned 15 months flew by in a blur.  I’m sure most of that had to do with our move and all the traveling that we did around that time, but part of it was also because she mastered so many new skills.  Almost every day since her birthday, it seems, she’s been wowing us with some new skill or “trick” (you know, if you count walking and talking as tricks).

One morning I was getting ready in the bathroom, and I looked over to find this scene. Typical and hilarious.

LC took her first hesitant steps the day before her first birthday, and then went promptly back to crawling.  But a week or two later, she just got up and went, first a few steps at a time, and within a week or so, she could go anywhere.  Let’s be clear: she is MY child, after all, so there have been many trips and falls, but she takes them all in stride and just pulls herself up and keeps going.  There have been few tears shed over bumps and falls.  And although she does sometimes go places she shouldn’t, for the most part, her mobility has made my life much easier.  I love being able to set her down outside and have her walk to the car (“Walk!” she commands).

Eating her first popsicle (homemade!) in the summer heat.

She’s also talking up a storm and for me, this has been the most delightful development EVER.  She had a few words at her first birthday, but around 14 months, her vocabulary soared.  She seems to add one or two new words a day, and at this point I have given up on trying to have a thorough and complete word list.  My best guess is somewhere just over 50 words.  At dinner, she’ll do the sign for “more” while shouting “More! More!”  It’s so cute to hear big words come out of a little mouth like that.  She loves identifying body parts (head, hair, eyes, nose, mouth, chin, ears, feet), and animals (sheep, fox, kitty, puppy, croco for crocodile, froggy, duck, etc).

With her daddy on Father’s Day.

LC is a pretty good eater most days.  Favorites are yogurt, cheese, pancakes, Annie’s mac and cheese, mandarin oranges and mixed fruit (she goes to the fridge and chants “Fruit! Fruit!”), grapes, crackers/anything carby, and pizza (the ultimate cheesy/carby delight!).  She still refuses to drink milk, and veggies are also a battle with her.  Some days she’ll eat them, but most days she refuses to even try them.  If it’s green, she picks it out. Oh how I wish I could say her favorite foods were kale, broccoli, and edamame.  The hardest part of mealtime is getting her to just TRY IT.  But I’m happy that overall she eats pretty well and is gaining weight.

Using two utensils helps you shovel it in faster!

Other favorites this month: the neighborhood splash park, throwing her football with Daddy, books books books and more books, ALL THE BOOKS, going to the library, and watching the occasional episode of Yo Gabba Gabba.  She just loves the music and dancing.   OH. And playing music–some of her FisherPrice toys play music when you press a button and she loves to press the button over and over again and dance by waving her arms.  Funny girl!

She is changing so much every day, so I really ought to save something for next month’s post.  I love this girl so much my heart is bursting!

Happy 4th of July!

Over the last two months we’ve been busy getting unpacked and settled into our new life here.  So far, so good.  There is a lot to adjust to here (like Target being an hour away! *sniff*), but overall we are happy with W’s new job, our location, and our home.  We’re meeting people more quickly than we did with our last move, which I find to be good for my sanity, and we’ve already even had dinner guests a couple of times.

Today, to celebrate Independence Day, we had a low-key day at home. We took LC to the neighborhood splash park and she had a ball.  We had to tear her away from the water features when it was time to leave.  For dinner we grilled hamburgers and hotdogs and LC tasted her first hotdog (thumbs up from her), and first baked beans (love at first bite), and first yellow squash (she mistakenly thought it was a piece of fruit, haha…and yes, squash is technically a fruit, but, you know…).  It was hot today (100 degrees), so we spent the afternoon in the air conditioning.  I am thankful every day that we do not have the darned swamp cooler that we had to live with for the last two years. So, so, so thankful!

Every holiday I feel the need to look back on photos from this time last year, when LC was just an itty bitty thing.  This time last year, she was 3 months old and just sitting up in the Bumbo for short periods of time.  It was really hot in El Paso, as well, so we just took her outside for a bit on the patio.  This year she’s running around, talking up a storm, and practically seeming like a grown-up compared to her bobblehead infant days.  Babies are sweet, but toddlers are fun!

I’d like to get around to writing her 15 month update before she turns 16 months.  She has grown and changed SO much since her birthday, I can hardly believe it.  Love this girl!

LC at 13 months

Just needed to jot down a few things while they’re fresh.

LC is so funny at 13 months. She is mostly walking everywhere and she does better walking in bare feet than in shoes. Walking everywhere means she is into EVERYTHING far more than I imagined possible. Lord help us all. She says “shoes” and then carries them all over the house. But don’t you dare try to put them on her feet.

She is very affectionate and loves a snuggle but she won’t give regular kisses. For now she just blows kisses and it’s sooo cute.

We are at 13 months still going strong with nursing. Hope to keep it up till she self-weans. Girlfriend does not want cow’s milk.

This baby GROWLS. A lot. She growls and chases you. It is hilarious and scary at the same time. W calls her a Baby Genghis Khan.

Speaking of scary, she can be a bit rough and I’ve been the one on the receiving end of it lately. During a peekaboo game with W, she head butted me in the teeth and split my lip. Today she hit me in the mouth with a can of tomato paste and chipped my tooth!!! (granted it’s a small chip from where I chipped it as a kid and it was repaired, but still!)

She was holding a can of tomato paste because we had a bag of pantry items to donate and she was amusing herself by packing and unpacking the bag. Then she started to stack the cans. She was able to stack 3 and even tried to get a fourth one on top, but alas, they toppled over.

We are going to be without Internet for a few days, but I’d like to come back and update this with more!