Photoshoot: 16 Months Old

Baby girl turned 16 months old on May 28. Each month on the 28th I take a photo of Miss Alexa and her owl to mark her growth because, as everyone likes to remind me, "they're only little for a short while."

(In the photo above, Alexa is kissing her owl. She kisses all her stuffed animals, then hands them to me to kiss, too.)

Alexa's still wearing a range of clothing (from 12 to 24 months, just depending). We've been favoring pants because she is running, climbing, jumping ... and falling. She's had a few skinned knees, her first war wounds. Each morning when I get her dressed for the day she will sit patiently on my lap while I put her hair in pigtails, a top knot or a ponytail. Then she will say "get down?" while sliding backward off the bed (like I taught her). She hurries to the full-length mirrors on our closet doors to look at herself. Does she approve? A big smile and coy sway always indicates yes.

We're still on the one-, sometimes two-naps-a-day schedule. Still two teeth, but the teething grumpiness lately is OUT OF CONTROL, and I can see several whites just beneath the surface.

Guess who's drinking milk out of a sippy cup? That's right. I finally convinced Daddy and our babysitter to go cold turkey on the bottle, and Alexa has made a pretty smooth transition. Daddy was worried about her abrupt decrease in intake (and we're still wasting plenty of milk because we fill the bottles with more than she will drink, yikes), but she is fine. She gets plenty of food, including dairy, and she drinks a lot of water, too.

We've been practicing our stair climbing, and she's gaining confidence taking steps down. She is getting bad at running off in public places and near stairs, so we've had to learn the art of holding hands. At first Alexa was resistant, but now she's pretty happy to do it. Of course there are the moments she yanks her hand away and darts into the parking lot, nearly giving me a heart attack. Incidentally, she had her first time out recently. I'm not sure whether it worked, but after sitting still for one minute (we had to start over and over again) she calmed down a little.

Little girl will climb on everything. She is a little daredevil. I have seen her climb on her short bookshelf, she has climbed on the couch and this morning she climbed atop her toy scooter and stood there, balancing precariously. Is it any wonder she has bruises?

Favorite things: sweeping the floors, brushing her teeth, playing with the ball, drawing, puzzles, sneaking sips of my iced chai, playing on her laptop, chewing on ice, spinning around in circles, going to the park, watching Yo Gabba Gabba, snacking on Goldfish or cantaloupe

Words: NO, hi, hello? (on phone), bye-bye, Mommy, Daddy, "nana" (banana), get down?, ball, booberries (blueberries), mahna mahna (aka food)

She understands so much more than she can articulate, though. Sometimes I will tell her complex things and she will follow through, sometimes even with the requisite toddler pouting and whining, including, "Please throw this away" or "Help me pick up these puzzle pieces" or "Stay away from the stairs."

Sometimes she will come out of the blue with full sentences, but it's still rare and we get so excited when we hear them. This morning (Father's Day) she woke up and shouted, "DADDY! GET ME DOWN!" Daddy was over the moon!