Danielle is obsessed with getting her picture taken. She now does the 'cheese' face that so many toddlers do around this time. It is pretty hard to get a pic that doesn't look like this anymore.
Danielle is so much fun lately. We are all so entertained by her. The big kids often fight over who gets to play with her. The three of them have even started playing together sometimes, which is great. I worried that having such a big age gap meant she would miss out on that, so I'm happy to see they are (at least for now) including her.
She is talking a lot more now. Her most common word is quickly becoming 'mine!' but I'm happy to report that she doesn't say 'no' yet. She does say 'yes' clear as day though, possibly making her the first child to ever say 'yes' before 'no'.
She loves to give kisses and no longer gives the open-mouth-slobber-all-over-you version. Everyone loves Danielle's kisses. She gives hugs too and I treasure every cuddle from her. She is the last baby I'll ever have, you know. ;)
Since summer, she has been napping almost every day. When we were shuttling B back and forth to school last year, too often she napped in the car and then didn't take one at home. Now with us dropping B and G at school in the morning, she is in a good routine of napping every day after lunch. I haven't had daily 'me' time in so long, I haven't known what to do with myself since school started. It has been really nice to sit and read, catch up with friends on FB, post here or take a nap while D naps. It is amazing how much it helps to have an hour or two to myself.
Danielle is still nursing, but she is down to just nursing before nap and at bedtime. When Bradley was this age, he was still nursing a lot during the day, so I think it's possible/probable that she'll be done way before he was (at 27 months). Sometimes I think about pushing her to wean, but she is my last baby. And my original plan was to let her lead the way until she turned 2 and then take over, so I'm sticking to that for now. Some days I'm really ok with that plan and other days I'm really ready for her to be done. But I think that's normal for most moms of an eighteen month old nursling.
Danielle's crib is still in our room. I've finally started thinking about moving her upstairs. Until recently, I wouldn't consider it. In our old house in Conroe, the nursery was right across the hall from the master and the idea of her being all the way upstairs was just not something I could handle. I expect she'll get moved into her room sometime this fall. I still haven't decorated it, so I need to do that before we move her up there.
Danielle is still super active. She climbs up on the kitchen table at least once every day. She climbs on chairs, couches, etc all the time. She does a really good job of navigating the stairs going up, but can't figure out down quite yet. She runs everywhere. She is very physical.
Once she gets to know you, she is her usual active self. But she is pretty shy if she doesn't know you and often takes a while to warm up to people.
Danielle LOVES Elmo. We must have a dozen Elmo books now.
Reading is another thing Danielle loves. She brought me about twenty books today and we read them all. She also loves to have me read the same one over and over and over again.
I think she's enjoying the one on one time with me. She is already a big helper. She helps 'sweep' and picks up food off the floor that she has dropped and throws it away. She also throws away random other things (not always things we want in the trash can). She helps unload the dishwasher by handing the dishes to me. But her favorite thing to help with is laundry. She gets so excited when the washer or dryer sings it's little song signaling a load is done. She loves to help carry clean clothes to my room to be folded. She even loads the washer for me. And she loves pushing the buttons to start it once I have it ready to go. I can only hope that this love of helping continues as she gets older.
She is already Miss Independent. I see into the future and anticipate the terrible twos will in fact be terrible. ;)
Her shoe obsession lives on. She is an equal opportunity shoe hog. She loves all shoes. Her own, Gracie's, Bradley's and mine. I don't think she has worn Doug's yet. But she helps herself to shoes from the shoe rack all the time and wears them all over the house. She is especially fond of heels.
She goes in my closet and helps herself:
She is especially fond of this particular pair. She walks in them quite well:
I had to throw this last one in for the non-cheese face:
She is growing up fast, but we're all ok with moving from the baby to toddler stage and we're excited for all that is ahead.
