Arielle at 16 months...and, ahem 1 week

My baby girl is starting to seem not so babyish to me these days. She is entering my favorite phase of baby/toddlerhood, the year and a half to 2 and a half range. Well, I'm not sure if that will be my favorite with her yet, but it sure was with Nate. I love seeing them start to figure things out. Their personalities become more defined and their language skills improve so much in that time frame. Ok, enough of what I'm looking forward to, let's talk about what I'm enjoying now!

 This face! This cherub, sweet cupie doll face! I can't get enough of it. I want to smooch it all day and snuggle into your squishy cheeks and neck. You still smell like baby and, since I can't bottle it, I will enjoy it as long as I can!

You are becoming quite funny and will repeat something if you see it has solicited a laugh from someone, especially Natey. The down side to this is, Natey likes to laugh at the inappropriate things that I don't want to encourage, like hitting yourself in the head or spitting. But your awareness of cause and effect is definitely growing.

You have started babbling a lot and repeating words you are learning. You like to say "Mama" and will keep saying it until I say what...and even after I say what. It seems you are working your pronunciation or something since you change the inflection on the words as you repeat them.

Your new favorite words and phrases are "Mama", "Good girl", "More", "Show", but you have started repeating so many words and are picking them up very quickly.

You still drive me nuts and take your shoes and socks off EVERY time we get in the car. If it wasn't freezing out I'd just take you to the car barefoot and put them on when we arrive at our destination.

 You do, however, have a fascination with everyone else's shoes and try mine and daddy's on all the time. It is hilarious to see you clomping around the breezeway in my red high heel or daddy's giant high top Nikes.

 You are very into demanding "Up" and then getting down right away only to demand to come up again. You try to climb up on anything and everything and are starting to get quite good at it. I have to watch you every second or I will turn around and you will be standing on a chair or climbing the couch.

You are a baby tornado. You would be happy if every object in our house was located on the floor. You upend baskets of folded laundry, pull papers off of the desk, try to take things out of the trash can, and take all of the DVDs out of the cupboard under the TV. Once they are safely on the floor, you want nothing to do with them and go about your merry way. It is hard to clean when you follow behind me making a mess, so let's work on that!

You are down to 1 bottle a day! It is progress. I thought the morning bottle would be a hard one to break you of, but you seemed to give it up without an issue. You still get the one right before bed and that one will be phasing out to a sippy cup of some sort in the near future.

It is super difficult to brush your teeth. I don't remember it being this hard the first time around. I practically have to wrestle you and hold your head to do it. There must be an easier way, but I have yet to figure it out.

Daddy puts YouTube songs on for you in the mornings on his phone as you snuggle in our bed. Now, every morning, you pick up my phone and demand, "Show!" and "mulk" (milk) when you get into our room. You are definitely learning how to get your way.

Keep up your sweet ways my sweet girl and I look forward to the months to come!