It's hard to believe our little baby girl just turned 15 months old. Every day I see more of her babiness fading away and being replaced by a sweet little girl full of personality and spunk. There are so many new things she does every day and I've needed to record them for a while now, so I'll just go through a few off the top of my head now.
In the past three months she started walking. She took her first few steps around one year of age, just from one piece of furniture to the next, and most of the time I think without even realizing she was doing it. But, it was over Christmas break, when we were visiting Pete's family in Baltimore, that she really took off. She started walking from one room to the other without a second thought. A few weeks into January is when she started getting up on her own, unassisted from any furniture or nearby legs to pull up on, and after that happened I haven't been able to stop her. She wants to walk everywhere and will squirm out of my arms when I try to carry her. She loves walking up and down the stairs to our apartment, and uses the railing all on her own to help her up. It's a lot of fun to watch, and I have to admit it can be much easier on me at times when I have my arms full. She never seems to get tired either, which amazes me because she's got such little legs. She'll never stop to be picked up along the way because she's too tired. Come to think of it, I rarely see her too tired for much of anything.
I started teaching Charlotte simple sign language around six to eight months, and she uses it now quite regularly. Some of her signs include "more", "please", (often those two used in conjunction when wanting something sweet that either Peter or I have near by), "again" (used often when she wants me to pull her around the house in the laundry basket), "help" (usually when needing help taking lids off jars to explore what's inside), "all done", "milk", "eat", "dance", "hurt", "patient", and "wait" (the last two being the most important, but the last to understand, of course). She wants to communicate so badly lately that often she'll use a few signs at once to try to tell me something she doesn't have the word for. She talks quite a bit too. Most of it is baby babble, of course, but some of the words we can make out are "Mama", "Dada", "hat", "puppy", "dolly", she tries to say bath because she loves them so much and gets so excited when we tell her she gets to take one but it usually comes out "da!", "hi", "bye".
I mentioned that Charlotte loves baths. We'll tell her it's bath time and she runs down the hall way toward the bathroom, trying as best as she can to take off her shirt along the way. When we get her undressed, she's now understanding how to walk her dirty clothes back to her room and put them in her clothes hamper and to put her dirty diaper in the trash can before she gets into her bath. That's probably the best part of the day, seeing our naked little baby traipse back through the house to get to the bathroom after throwing away her dirty diaper. We'll give her lots of bubbles, which she likes to rub up and down her arms, and all her favorite bath toys. I think if we didn't cut her off at around twenty minutes, she'd stay in there all night long. We'll ask her if she's ready to get out, and she adamantly says "no!", turns her head away and gets herself very busy again playing in the bath. We'll drain out all the water and she's still sitting in the tub, playing with the toys, and making the most of the all-but-gone bubbles remaining in the tub.
Other than watching her naked little body run through the house before bath time, my other favorite part of the day is when her Daddy comes home from work. As soon as she hears his key turn in the lock, she gets this super excited look on her face, squeals, claps, and starts jumping up and down in my arms if I'm holding her. She LOVES her Daddy, and that fact right there just lights up my world. He adores her and it really shows in all the time and attention he gives to her. She knows Daddy's the one to go to for a good time of wrestling, tickling, flying through the air, or that extra bite of cookie. It's really great to see the two of them together and I'm so blessed to be married to a man who is such a fantastic father to his child.
With #2 on the way in a few short months, I try to get Charlotte ready for the change to her world. I know at 15 months, her understanding of this reality is very limited, but I still tell her daily how excited I am for her to be a big sister to her new little brother or sister. I tell her there's a baby in Mama's belly, and she'll lift up my shirt to "look" for it, then very shortly thereafter get distracted by my belly button. She loves to look at pictures of other babies. We have a few baby magazines on the shelf and she'll get them out and page through them for twenty minutes at a time some days, just looking at the baby pictures. She's also super social with other kids and always wants to be where they are, even if they're much bigger than her. I just know she's going to be a great big sister and will really enjoy having a little play mate to spend her days with.
Another really neat thing about Charlotte's personality is that she loves to share. Whatever toy she's playing with, she'll always bring it over to me and let me enjoy it as well. She has a favorite dolly and stuffed puppy she plays with most often, and she'll bring them to me and have me give them a kiss and cuddle and then she'll kiss and cuddle them in return. She also loves sharing her food. Just about every meal, she'll take a bite and then insist that you take the next bite. Then she'll look for her dolly and want to share the food with her as well, which I found is great if you're talking about sharing Cheerio's, but when it's spaghetti, it's a whole other story for Dolly. Dolly is presently in the washing machine with Shout sprayed on her face.
Meal time has become a fun time for us all and also a bit of a challenge at times. Charlotte has a true independent streak to her, which I'm sure is the same for most 15 month old children. She will eat about three fourths more food if you let her use a fork and/or spoon. She loves trying doing it all herself and I've had to force myself many times to really let go and allow her to get a little (or a lot) messy and just explore and enjoy herself. At times I think it's been more of a learning curve and growing time for me than it has for her. She's definitely taught me how to let go of many of my control tendencies. I thank the Lord for that!
I just really love our little girl. It amazes me how my heart can continue to grow each day and how amazed I can continue to be by another human being so young and so small. She is such a beautiful and delightful blessing in our lives and I am a better wife and woman because of her. I pray every day that the Lord would give me wisdom to know how to best raise her, how to best discipline her, and that I would be patient and long suffering with her in times of challenge. I continue that prayer two-fold for this next little bundle that will soon make his/her entrance into our lives. It is definitely the most challenging job I've ever had but the only one I could imagine for my life. I thank the Lord every day that I get to spend it the way I do, whether it ends in tears or laughter, I can't imagine doing anything else! I love you Charlotte, my sweet little love.
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