Seventeen Months!

Darci turns seventeen months today. Time to schedule another Dr. visit for immunizations and a checkup, and time for her first dentist visit! She has four front teeth on top, two on bottom, and her first molars are coming in. They have been coming in for a while now! She gets her teeth brushed right after she gets in the tub every night, and she loves it. Last night she opened her mouth super wide and flung her head back so I could brush in there, what a good girl!

Darci is learning new things very quickly now. She says please (sounds like peas) all the time when she wants something. She will say please to have us pick her up, give her a snack, open doors or gates, or play with something she brings us. She also says yes and seems to understand what it means. If you ask her if she’s hungry or wants breakfast she will go over to the kitchen gate ready to eat, and if you ask if she’s ready for bath time she will run to the hall gate and beg to get out for her bath. This morning Doug and I both heard some version of the word banana from her when she saw her banana, she eats one every morning. She points to things and asks “what’s that” (sounds like wazzzah) about a million times a day, and we are happy to oblige with the names of everything, over and over. She will bring you a book to read and loves looking at the pictures, turning the pages, and pointing to things so you can name them. She will also read her books on her own, sometimes talking like she’s reading.

She has started mimicking us in speech and action, and she can pretend. She’ll pretend to pick small things out of your hand and toss them away. We recently saw her pushing one of her little stuffed cars around like she knew it was a car. Doug bought her some sidewalk chalk and she’s been enjoying scribbling all over the concrete outside. We’ve been trying to contain it to just one area but we’ll see how long that lasts.

Darci’s getting taller, we still need to get her a height chart so we can start marking her growth. We bought size 5 diapers for the first time this month, she’s been in size 4 since October of last year. She has slimmed down just a little, but still has a bit of baby fat in all the right places. She is in size 18 or 24 month clothes. Jeans are not great right now, since they impede her climbing. She spends most of her time in t-shirts and shorts or one piece sunsuits.

Meal times are good right now. She likes to have her own spoon, and will feed herself a few times with it, but mostly she bangs things and puts her spoon in and out of the bowl. She will let you feed her but sometimes you have to be sneaky about it and get in a spoonful when she’s distracted. For breakfast she has milk when she wakes up, followed closely by a banana, then oatmeal about an hour later. For lunch she usually eats her own ham and cheese sandwich cut into bites. For dinner she eats what we do, which is usually pasta with meat and veggies in it or a potato dish with meat and veggies, and she has a fruit course (dessert) with every meal, either yogurt or fresh or canned fruit. Snacks include fruit, yogurt, animal crackers, and cereal (which is generic apple jacks presently).

She gives hugs all the time, and she thinks giving kisses means putting out your cheek for Mommy or Daddy to kiss, which is perfect for now. She loves to dance and will do so anytime she hears music. Today I am selling her swing since she is too big for it, and consigning my maternity wardrobe at the resale shop. It’s bittersweet to think we won’t have a baby for much longer, but she is quickly turning in to a little kid with a great personality.

Summer Fun at Last!

We’ve had a very long, cool, wet springtime this year. Summer temps and sunny days have just begun in the past week or two. This weekend was the warmest yet, with both days hitting 100. That means morning is the best time to spend a few minutes outside playing in the yard while it’s still cool. I took a few photos of outdoor play on Sunday. Darci loves to run around the yard, and is very curious about everything. She found all the remaining fireworks debris among the gravel right away, each tiny jumping jack was like a new treasure and I ended up with a whole pocket full of them before she was done hunting.

Darci likes to be your shadow now, especially outside. That makes it a little easier to get things done, since she’s usually right there where you are, lending her tiny “helping” hands. She loves going out so much that her new word is shoes, and she will tote her shoes around saying it over and over. She knows which shoes belong to whom and once you get hers on she will bring you yours so everyone can go outside together.

Doug is in the midst of an outdoor project to make a private, shady area for Darci’s pool, so we got out the sprinkler this weekend to cool off and enjoy more time outside. Darci was fine going through the water if you held her, although she was not a big fan of getting sprayed. This little video is after the first trip through – Daddy was trying to coax her to run through holding his hand and she wasn’t having any of it!

Outdoor play involves a lot of getting dirty now, so we have to be prepared for a change of clothes at least, and usually a bath after playing outside. She piles rocks on other rocks, digs in the dirt with sticks and her hands, crawls around in the rocks and dirt, and seems completely oblivious to bare knees and tender fingertips. Here are a few shots of her playing with a stick in the dirt, chewing on the stick, and then offering it to me.

She’s very busy, always on the go. She now has kitchen access for most of the day, which she really enjoys. Favorite activities include carting big things around, putting small things into a bucket and then dumping them out, transferring small things from one bucket to another, and finding ways to get frustrated.

With the recent addition of the word “shoes” she now says 4 words. She eats whatever we do for the most part. We’ve been playing with crayons a bit lately, and her first masterpiece is now on display on our fridge. It takes a few minutes for her to warm up to writing with them, and I think her biggest pleasure is collecting them, lining them up on her high chair tray and then reaching for more to add to her collection.