15 months

Holly just had her 15 month visit. She's now 32 inches tall. She's 26lbs and 12oz. Our doctor pronounced her healthy, happy and cute as a button. It's good to get a professional opinion...

Sorry that we're not posting very often these days. In addition to chasing our toddler around the park, Tom and I have both been very busy at work. We're both studying for work-related exams. We have tons of projects we're doing to improve the house. And of course, there's always dinner to cook, floors to clean, finances to manage and mail to sort. We're exhausted!

As an update, Holly hasn't had milk from her mom in 10 days. She spends the first part of every night (and sometimes more) in the crib in her room. Her vocabulary is totally expanding! She says close to 50 words now (probably understands double that) and it grows every day. Her favorite books are Curious George and Goodnight Little Bear. Her favorite things to eat are eggs, cheese and yogurt. Unless it's on chopsticks, in which case she'll eat just about anything. She LOVES Chinese food.

She adores climbing stairs (when she can find them) and going down slides (photo). She loves dogs and wants to play with every one she meets outside. She helps me with the laundry, puts away our shoes in the basket, and cleans her face and the table after a meal. (I should note that the first she does by pulling everything out of the washer and throwing it on the floor, the second often results in the shoes going in and out of the basket 12 times and the third often ends with half the stuff on the table on the floor and the other half caught up in her hair since napkin peek-a-boo is very fun---but hey---she's a toddler---let's give her points for trying!) Ok. Now I need to do our taxes! Hope to post more another time.

Poetry in Motion

Now that Holly's started walking, she's in constant motion. All of our photos of her are action shots. And most are slightly blurry. She's also 15 months old now! Here are a few photos from her 14th month.

Tales of cuteness

Holly is more and more a toddler every day and with this comes both joys and challenges. She had a tantrum in Whole Foods the other day when I wouldn't let her have the duck toys we passed. She walks and talks like a pro. She isn't as easily distracted from items she wants but cannot have- my morning hot coffee - for example. Her favorite thing at the park is now the slide. She likes me to hold her whenever I'm home which can make cooking dinner challenging.

So much is happening in her growth. She understands so much and says a great deal. She is almost entirely weaned from breastfeeding. She now has 6 teeth (and counting) and 2 of them are molars. She generally sleeps in the Pack N Play until well after 2am before joining us in the bed. She blows kisses. She gives great hugs. Her favorite toys are two she received this Christmas: a doll and a stuffed lion. She has also begun to parrot what we do which results in much cuteness.

• One night while sitting in the floor of her room I had her reindeer hand-puppet and I was singing Rudolph the Red Nosed Reindeer. She indicated that she wanted to have the puppet and once I put it on her hand (really it came all the way up past her elbow so hand-puppet is a misnomer) she began "singing" back to me moving the puppet around.
• We have finally begun to translate some of her lingo. "Jeewsh" is George. "Apple" can mean apples, pears or oranges. "Mah!" is for more of something."Duckie" is what she calls her ducks. "Booh" is book. "Bow" is bowl. "Shu" is shoe.
  
• Another night I was reading with her in her room and my nose was running like mad. To get a tissue, I would have had to leave her room and grab some which would have upset her. So I grabbed a burp cloth and used it to blow my nose and then threw it into her laundry basket. She watched. Then picked up a clean burp cloth. Pretended to blow her nose. Then threw it across the room. When I laughed, she giggled and repeated the action several times.
• We asked her over dinner one night if the pasta was yummy in her tummy. So she pulled up her dress to look at her tummy to see.
  

I'll stop there. But there are many more tales of cuteness from our happy baby.

Walking into the New Year!