16 Months

Stella is 16 months old. Actually, she has been for over a week now, but that's beside the point. It's been a very busy but fun month for us. She's moving faster, which means I have to move faster. But, it's been really fun to see her pick up on a lot of new things this month.

Now that she's walking around more outside, we've been putting big kid shoes (hard-soled shoes) on her more. She loves it! She loves the noise they make and will walk around on the hard floors with her shoes on to hear it. She's recently moved up a shoe size, so lately we've been trying shoes on her a lot to see which of our plethora of hand-me-down choices will fit. She loves trying them on and often gets upset if I try them on and then take them off again without letting her walk around in them. And, she's also recently discovered that she can put on our shoes (or slippers, as the case may be) and that's even more fun. She loves shoes! What can I say - she's definitely my daughter.

This month, she's also added a couple words to her repertoire. She now says car (ka) and cookie (ke-ka). And her signing is really picking up. We started signing with her months ago. The only sign she seemed to pick up on was "more". So, we sort of gave up and stopped signing with her. Then, all of a sudden, she started signing. Lots. So, we're back on the signing bandwagon and are starting to work on some new ones. Her "more" sign has morphed into a greater meaning. She now uses it whenever she wants anything, whether it's more of what she's been having (or doing) or something completely new. When it's something completely new, it's always fun trying to guess just what it is she wants. Her signing is awfully cute because she can't do a lot of the signs correctly, so she does the best she can and we love it. I suppose maybe I should try to capture that on video. Anyway, she currently signs "more", "milk", "please", and "all done". We're starting to work on "thank you", but she hasn't quite got it yet.

Stella has developed an interest in climbing into and sitting in things. It started with Scout's bed (which Scout didn't appreciate).

Then it moved to her toy box.

Now it's whatever looks like it might be big enough to hold her.

I took her to the park for the first time a few weeks ago when the weather warmed up. She loved being outside and walking around on the concrete. And she looks like she's having a grand time in these pictures. Don't be fooled. She was freaked out by everything from the wood chips on the ground in the playground area to the slide to the swing. Fortunately, by the time we left she had warmed up to the slide, a little. We've gone back and she's done better. But, we're still working on getting her to like the swing.

She remains very curious and is pretty good at opening drawers to discover what's inside. Her current favorites are my pots and pans drawers and the drawer with all her plastic spoons, bowls, bibs, etc.

She recently found my swimming goggles and thought they were hilarious. But, I had a hard time getting a picture of her before she tried to take them off. I had to convince her to take a few moments to check them out in the mirror.

She likes to eat and especially loves fruit. But, she's starting to show a lot more independence now and it's often through food and during her feedings. Things that she used to love she has all of a sudden started rejecting like it's the plague. She refuses cheese. This greatly saddens both Mr. Frisby and I. She used to love it and would eat it up great. Now, she just throws it on the floor. She used to eat almost everything we gave her. Now she's figured out that she can choose what she eats and once she decides she's not going to eat something, her mind has little chance of being changed. She currently loves Blueberries and Raspberries. At least they're healthy. She's also learning to feed herself with a fork. She does pretty well, but sometimes loses patience and just throws the fork overboard and uses her hands. She does okay with a spoon if we help her, but she has a hard time getting the spoon to her mouth right side up if we don't. We're working on it.

She does love desserts, ice cream in particular, and she comes running to get some if she sees us eating any.

It seems like she developed and changed a lot this month. She's figuring out that objects have a purpose. The other day, I looked over and she had my keys and was holding one up to the door knob. Fortunately for us, she isn't physically able to turn door knobs and open doors, but she gets how it works. She picks up on a lot of things just by hearing us talk about things or watching us do things. And, it's surprising sometimes how quickly she learns.

Stella is still working on her upper canines. The teething process with her has been really pretty easy and painless. Until these last two. These two are beasts! She's been working on them for over a month and they've been the cause of a lot of lost sleep for all of us. Every day I think, "maybe today will be the day they finally poke through." And, every day, it's not. But, one of these days they'll finally come in and her teething will be over for awhile. We hope it's very soon. For all our sakes.

She still loves Scout and they have a good time playing together. She tries to chase Scout around, but of course she's not fast enough. She has fun anyway. She likes to tease Scout with her toys, too. She actually likes to tease all of us with whatever she can. It makes me nervous for when she gets older.

And that's Stella. She makes our world go round.