Oh my sweet baby… I can’t let much more time go by before I recap all your accomplishments of late. I can already tell that less frequent posts are going to run the risk of spawning monster posts when I finally do sit down and write about you. Which is why I sit now and force myself to begin to recount the tale of the last 2 months. There is sooo much. And so many pictures. I’m going to have to get serious about putting together another album. It seems like an impossible task, keeping up with all the pictures I take of you, baby doll. But anyway, I better just dive in and at least give you an idea what it’s like living with 14-month-old AddyLane – a few of the standout moments, pics, and developmental milestones of 2011 so far in no particular order…

I am in love you. That is the most important thing I can tell you about your life right now. You surprise me at every age by digging your way deeper into my heart. Every age is better than the next. Not only do I love you, but every single family member loves you. You are the light in our lives. I don’t know what we all used to talk about before we had you to provide 24 hour entertainment.

So, what are you doing these days? Let’s see. You’re walking! Which, of course, I wrote about in my last post. But since then, you have gone from needing to be coaxed into walking a few steps to using your two feet of your own volition as your  primary means of transportation almost all of the time. You’re not quite running, but you hopalong pretty rapidly these days and within the last 2 or 3 days, you’ve also started standing up in the middle of the room without needing something to pull up on. Then you toddle all around with your arms in the air, usually toting around some toy or another, a blanky or a cup of fishy crackers or water. You always have something in your hands.

Actually, some of your favorite things for your to tote around on while you’re exercising those little legs are the pieces to your two new favorite toys. You have a CD player that allows you to open and close a door where CDs drop when you insert them into the CD slot on the top of the player. And in the same vein, you have a Piggy Bank with a slot on the top and about 10 plastic coins which you can insert into a slot on the top and then retrieve through a door on the side. You love putting the CDs and coins in the hold and hearing them drop inside. You love opening and closing the doors, and you LOVE stacking as many of the coins/cds as you can carry in your chubby little fingers and then walk around with them, dropping them in all manners of hiding places for us to find later. Your legs are still one of my very favorite things about you. I don’t know what it is, but there are just. BEYOND. CUTE.

Your tushie is pretty squeezable as well. 😉 I have to do it. HAVE to. I’m your Mom.

Your enjoyment of books continues to grow, but you especially love interactive books. You have a Princess Belle book with sound effects and you love to push the buttons. And you have this animal counting book that lets you put your finger into holes and slide hidden animals into view. You adore that one. If you see it laying on your nightstand you will strain and fuss until I get it for you and let you play peek-a-boo with the animals.

You continue to learn signs. You’ve added “please,” “sleep,” “peas,” “water,” and sometimes even “no” to your vocabulary. We’re working on “thank you,” “pear,” “cheese,” “good,” “bad,” “again,” and “want.” Honestly, I think you are limited only by my degree of consistency and dedication to teaching you. You use the sign “all done” is all kinds of appropriate situations when you are all done with a meal, a toy, your binky, your nap, when you want out of the swing at the park, when you don’t like some kind of new food we’ve let you sample. That sign alone allows you to communicate a really amazing amount of information to us about what you want, don’t want, how you’re feeling. And you will mimic just about anything. You catch on almost immediately, when you’re in the mood to be cooperative. You are a smart cookie, and I rarely feel like you “don’t get it.” If you don’t do it, it’s because you very much have your own mind and maybe you don’t feel like it. But you aren’t confused. My little Miss A… 😉 And it’s not just signs, you mimic EVERYTHING. You tap your finger on your forehead when I tell you you’re “so smart!” You shake your head and say “mm.mm.mm” in a sing-song voice when you know you’re not supposed to do something that you want to do (Mima taught you that). You try to snap your fingers like me when we’re singing and dancing around to music (which you love and do all the time). You try to put every shoe you see on your feet, Daddy’s, mine and your own. And you seem to understand how to play with toys, even before we show you how, like how you fed your cabbage patch doll her bottle without us ever showing you that you what to do.

Let’s see… I’ve already mentioned you know body parts. I think you’ve added “tummy” and “hair” at least to the ones you know… which are most of the basic ones. We’re working on new animal sounds, but you still mostly Moo, Meow and Hoohoohoo (monkey). Oh, but a new thing! You can recognize and point out familiar things in books… when you’re in the mood. You have a Rudolph the Red-nosed Reindeer book from Christmas and you will find him on every page and point to him when we ask. You’ve actually been doing that since before Christmas. Pretty amazing for a then 12 month old I think!

With intelligence comes attitude and that brings us to the new “fits” you’re throwing. They’re still pretty mild and infrequent… also they don’t last long. But I see where it’s going. When we pick you up to take you somewhere and you don’t want to go, or we take away something that you’ve gotten your hands on that you’re not supposed to have, you get downright GRUMPY. You’ve started arching your back and kicking and screaming and kind of flailing around. Oh baby. That’s not cool. We’re going to have to work on that. I’m trying to be really good about explaining to you in a calm voice what’s going on so that we can head off these kind of emotional displays, at least so they aren’t quite so dramatic. I try to never JUST take something away, or JUST pick you up and take you somewhere you don’t want to go. I let you know what we’re doing and why. I try to treat you like I’d want to be treated. I think it makes a difference. Seriously, you know what’s going on and you understand most things. I would rather error on the side of giving you too much credit than treating you like a dumb baby anyway. But I have no delusions about my sweet, perfect angel. You have an attitude and you aren’t afraid to show it, darling.

And how about a little rant from your Momma to get one thing straight? Yes, your Daddy and I use the word “No.” It seems like I’ve read and gotten so much advice lately about never, ever using that word and I think it’s pretty silly. I have always, from the very beginning, attempted to give you instruction in a positive light rather than a negative way if at all possible. When you grab onto my earrings and pull I say, “Be gentle,” rather than “no!” for example. But there are certainly times when I believe things are not a negotiation and you do to understand the meaning of ,”No, you cannot have that. No, do not do that.” I just think it’s silly this whole idea that “No” is some kind of bad or damaging word. And of course, with everything – not just in moments of discipline – I try to explain to you the “whys” so if you’re about to touch the hot stove I don’t just say “No.” I say “No, hot!” Give you ouchies!” Yes, I really do talk like that. Haha. Anyway, this is one of those kind of controversial topics I guess that has been on my mind. So even though it’s not my first choice in moments of instruction, don’t expect me to be banning the word from our home. And discipline books are sitting in a stack on my bookcase. That’s my next research topic, one I’m not really looking forward to. A necessary evil. I don’t want to be completely unprepared and I certainly want to have an idea how to discipline you – not punish you – to grow up right, loving, good, kind.

One place we’ve had a major breakthrough is in the battleground of the FOOD WARS. After much, much patience and many, many hours on my knees cleaning food off of the floor, we have finally come to some kind of compromise… a method that seems to work in preventing everything I put on your food tray from ending up on the floor. Momma thanks you. That was getting pretty old. I stopped using the “N” word when you would do it (it became a thing you did to get a reaction for sure) and instead began picking it up off the floor putting it back on the tray and saying “Food belongs on the tray or in the mouth” (a recommendation from a wise friend!) After a week or so, I started adding “Give it to Momma, if you’re all done,” and lo and behold, you started handing the food out to me and dropping it in my hand. At first, you did it with everything. We’ve progressed to the point now where you only do it when you actually don’t want to eat whatever it is that is on your tray. I do have to be paying attention. Because if I ignore the outstretched food-laden fingers, they will travel over the edge of the tray and plummet their contents to the floor beneath. But as long as I’m watching you, you hand the food you don’t want to me at least 90% of the time. Success!! Thank you!  I also only give you 1 or 2 pieces of whatever you’re eating at a time. For some reason, even with things you want to eat, it overwhelms you and you shove as much as you can in your mouth (a choke hazard) and whatever you can’t fit will go on the floor in rapid succession. So feeding you slowly solves that issue.

You have a total of 10 teeth  now – your eight front ones and 2 molars – with which you eat. They make for a pretty adorable toothy smile, munchkin.

Sleep is still the same, even though you should be dropping your morning nap, you still seem to absolutely need it and will lay down on the floor in your playroom upstairs and roll around by 10am if we haven’t put you in your crib. Still another nap in the afternoon and 12 to 13 hours of sleep per night. You love to sleep.

Here’s a little montage from our trip to Carlsbad with Mima and Papi. You took your first steps while we were there. We all had so much fun with you!

Of course, I feel like I’m missing so many things, but a few details is better than none.

Love you, big girl!