fourteen months

dear Sweetpea,

you are at such a fun age right now! all day long, we can practically watch your brain process and synthesize information, whether you're experimenting with dropping things, petting the kitten's tail in your Touch and Feel Animals book, or pointing out "mama" and "dada" in the pictures on our refrigerator. your latest obsession is cleaning your high chair tray or the coffee table with a Kleenex or dustcloth. you wipe off every speck you can find, and sometimes you'll start to clean the floor too. what a big helper! 

you have lots of new words this month: "uh oh", "ball", "foof foof" (woof woof), and "dat" (that, accompanied by pointing to something you want). once, when you were playing on the bed and got wedged between some pillows, i quoted a line from Little Blue Truck: " 'Help, help, help!' cried the Little Blue Truck. 'Beep! Beep! Beep! I'm stuck, I'm stuck!' " you looked up at me, very woefully, and said, "Hep! Hep! Hep!" which made my entire week, and of course i "helped" you up! 

your favourite toys now are the gumball machine from Nana and Pappy. you love to push the lever to pop out a ball and you dance when the music plays. you've learned the hard way that some of your other toys don't fit in the chute, which leads to much consternation when you push the lever and they get stuck. you can stack up to four blocks by yourself, and you've also been obsessed with your Mega Bloks recently. Daddy likes to build huge towers and cars with you. 

we had our first real snowfall this month, and you got all bundled up in your brand new snowsuit and boots to play outside. you always smile and say "yeee!!" ("yay") with excitement when we go out in the cold weather, particularly if it's snowing, but when we let you stand in the snow, you weren't sure what to make of it. and you definitely did not like sitting down in the snow. so we just looked at the pretty trees for a while and went back inside. :) 

we joke about getting you a mini trampoline because you love to jump so much. even without one, you still get a good workout jumping on the couch, in your crib, or (my personal favourite) when standing next to the tub before your bath. you also love to kick your legs up in the air super fast on the changing table. such a silly girl! 

this month, you started visiting the Walker-Transition room at daycare, the next step up from the nursery. even though you're not walking much yet (one or two steps at a time), you're mentally and verbally ready to rock with the toddlers. they do lots of fun activities, songs, and crafts, and you love it! the biggest adjustment is that all of the toddlers sleep on cots from noon to around 2 pm. you've done really well in your big girl bed, and even though you usually only sleep for an hour or so, you'll sit quietly in your bed reading books with the teachers until the rest of the class wakes up. as you adjust to the new routine, i think you'll end up sleeping more in the Walker-T room along with the other toddlers, since the babies all napped on their own individual schedules in the nursery and you never wanted to miss out on the action. 

Daddy's schedule is a little less hectic this semester, and we've had some great family outings. you loved visiting the National Aviary with us. you particularly liked watching the penguins, as well as the small finches and other birds in the grasslands exhibit who would fly right over our heads. while i was impressed with the flamingoes and parrots in the tropical exhibits, some of the other birds screeched and screamed so loudly that you were a little overwhelmed. on the way out, we stopped in the gift shop and you picked out a very fluffy stuffed penguin. now you sleep with him (and your beloved seahorse!) every night. annnnnd i may not have been able to resist buying a huge stuffed chick for your Easter basket. 

we love you so much!