Excuse me while I gush...

14 months is, I am finding, a superbly fun age. Everyday my daughter is learning things that just amaze me. She is developing a passion for making her mama and daddy laugh. She knowingly and on purpose does things to be funny. She is beginning to learn some boundaries and rules. Not that she follows them. But she is learning. She is also learning the mechanics of her own body. She is figuring out how to climb, how to dance, how to run, how to sit in a chair. And everyday she seems to make new mental connections. I have observed her grouping like items in her play. She puts things back where they go (sometimes). She is beginning to figure out how things fit together in her world.
It is all so fascinating to watch. It fills me with endless pride when I see her make a connection that previously meant nothing to her. For example, last night, she was playing with her collection of valentines. She keeps them in a little oval box. She kept taking them out, looking at them, and then putting them back in the box. She had other toys around, but she knew that those toys didn't belong in the oval valentine box. Those toys (her play jewelry) belong in her play purse, which is where she put them. Then she decided to see how things fit in her little metal cup. She first put the jewelry in there. She dropped some of the jewelry on the floor, so she painstakingly picked it up, piece by piece, and put it in the cup. She had a hard time figuring out how to get the necklace to stay in the cup because the length and weight of it was pulling it out, but she learned to scrunch it all up in her hand and then place it in the cup all at once. How did she learn that? Next, she took the jewelry out and began to fill her cup with valentines. She got quite a few more in there than I expected. How does this little brain, that mere months ago didn't even know it was attached to a body with hands and feet, discover and learn the physics and mechanics of weight, balance, proportion, and scale? How does that brain figure out that jewelry, a hair brush, a hand mirror, and a purse "go together" and that her valentine cards, and only those cards, go in the little box? It astounds me, frankly.
Her developing coordination and strength leave me speechless as well. She has been trying for a few weeks to figure out how to climb up onto the couch. She attempts to heave her little knee up onto the couch. But, the couch is just a little too tall for her to scale. Or so I thought. Until Sunday. First she managed to get that knee up on the cushion and then she pulled herself up using daddy's knee for leverage. Her father and I were both astonished. And I said, "she has been trying to do that for weeks. But I don't think she could do it if you weren't sitting there, so she could use your knee as a handhold." No sooner were the words out of my mouth than she climbed down, and repeated her feat without using daddy at all. And last night? I caught her using her little red rocking chair as a ladder to reach higher shelves on the bookcase. Now I ask you, how did she devise the body mechanics to hoist her little body up onto the couch that is easily 2/3 of her own height? And where did she get the idea that a chair could be used for more than sitting in; that it could, in fact, be used for climbing?
She is just so full of LIFE. She runs to greet me, with a big smile, and hugs my legs when I pick her up from Grandma's at the end of the day. Her favorite game these days is running around the circle created by our kitchen/LR/Dining room. She says "hi," and giggles with great glee when you yell "hi" back, and cheer. Then she says "bye-bye" and runs the circle again. She enjoys giving hugs and kisses and will do so spontaneously now. She thinks it's the funniest thing to blow raspberries on my neck and arms when I am attempting to rock her to sleep. I cannot stop myself from laughing at that, even though it "encourages her."
With every day she become less of a "baby" and more and more a "little girl." While it well and truly breaks my heart, it also fills me with pride and joy to observe this transformation. I wish I could take credit for teaching her...well, anything, really. But everytime I sit back and just watch I see her discover more than I would ever think she is capable of.


Using her chair "appropriately." Earlier, she had it turned around to face the shelves and was kneeling on the seat while trying to reach that plate.


Eating cereal with Daddy. Check out that cute slip of belly!


My, how that whale-spout sprouting from the top of her head has grown recently!


Using her red chair as a table. She placed her banana slices one by one on the chair, then ate them just as carefully.


Though it is hard to tell in this picture, the pink ball is actually much smaller than the green ball. She loves to challenge herself by trying to pick up and carry both balls at the same time.


I swear I did not pose any of these pictures. That's just how she rolls.

Valentines in a cup. Note the jewelry...not in the cup. It doesn't "belong."



It just doesn't get any cuter.