Anna's 14th Month

Anna passed her fourteen month mark a couple days ago.

She has cut at least one more tooth (molars are on their way, but I'm not brave, and I haven't checked recently) - this one is bottom front on the right.

So we're up to four across the top and three on bottom.  Eating is still going really well (she has even warmed up to blue cheese!).

She's saying off as it relates to her white noise machine (it's the first thing we do after she gets up from sleeping).  She is saying and signing help distinct from up now, but really only when prompted.  She signs please for bits of whatever I'm chopping up (usually cheese or fruit).  She's had Dadda for several months now, but she just acquired the sign language for it about a week ago.  Mama is a rarely-heard one, and more often it's dadda for both of us.

She started calling all of her balls ball-ball last month (and Bear is bear-bear), but I mention it again because I can't get over how much I love it.  Also new this month: catch ("hetch"), cereal, hug, and the signs for sleep and friend.

She also copies the way we (I) say Good boy! to the cat and Good job! to herself whenever she accomplishes something.

Catch is usually accompanied by one hand holding a toy above her head, then rapidly bringing it down to "catch" it with her other hand in front of her face.  The concept of throwing hasn't clicked yet.

There was one day this month in which she kicked a ball a few times, but that has not been repeated.

Absolutely everything gets a kiss these days from the obvious (the cat) to the less-so (the book, blanket, edge of the chair, or the air in the general direction of these objects.).  And every kiss is followed by a sweet AWWWW.

She LOVES being tickled and flipped upside down and spun around in circles and thrown overhead.  Not new, but maybe even more fun this month than last.

This was the month of the wild blackberries in the yard.  I will miss the free delicious berries, but not the peanut butter poo that went with them.

Anna's closet door still doesn't have its trim, so there's a half-inch gap around the closed door, and the light switch for the closet is reachable from the crib.  So some mornings/post nap I walk in to find myself in a disco as Anna mindlessly flicks the switch up and down while chewing on the railing.

Anna is solidly walking now, and it is so, so fun.

She was not thrilled with walking in shoes the first time we tried, but then I'm not either.  Robeez are the way to go.  Monkey seems to be taking it all pretty well.

I'm glad we amassed a pretty good collection of board books before Anna was born because we read every single one of them multiple times a day.

Reading has become one of her favorite activities.  I love the way she toddles over to me, book held in one outstretched hand, and then she kind of lunges/collapses into my arms so that I can put her on my lap for story time...it's my moment to hug and cuddle her without her squirming away to do something more interesting.

Anna is such a sweet, affectionate, funny, curious kid.  She's learning so much so fast!  I want to remember every little thing in the years to come.

This is the part of the summer where I realize how much I've been taking for granted the gloriousness of going barefoot and basking in warmth and sunshine.  The memory of bundling up and shoveling snow and feet that are always cold for six months...that memory of past and coming winter rears its head again in the you know, you're going to die someday kind of way.  I've been feeling that same feeling of savoring the now while both anticipating and maybe a little dreading the future with our wee one.  She is so deliciously adorable right now...and I know the future brings an even brighter, cooler, more interesting person as she develops more and more into the individuality that is already hers...but I do wish I could revisit this time again later.

Ah, little Anna.  What a lucky set of parents we are to have gotten YOU for a daughter!