Millie's 17 months old now!

Another month has passed us by. Another month closer to meeting Millie's baby brother. Millie knows where baby Camden is too. She'll point and kiss my belly. She's such a sweetheart and a very loving addition to our family. This month she's been:

- pretending a lot... that she's asleep, making something in her kitchen, drinking from an empty cup, talking on the phone, hiding, or she'll get on all fours like a dog and crawl around the house.
- wearing necklaces, bracelets almost everywhere she goes.
- peeling pages in her board books and labels off her toy food.
- scribbling with crayons.
- obsessed with magnets on the refrigerator.
- saying new words like "eye" and pointing at her eye (or rather, poking out her eye), "go, go, go" which she learned when I tell her to get out of the bathroom because its not a play room, "bye" accompanied by a wave, "Bewa" meaning Bella.
- walking herself to her room for naps and bedtime. Especially for bedtime, either Matt or I will ask her if she's ready to go to sleep and she'll look at us and walk straight to her room. That's our cue to stop everything, grab her water, baby, whatever she needs for bedtime and haul ourselves to her room before the opportunity passes!
- Speaking of bedtime, every other day or so Matt will put Millie to bed solo. We've been doing it as a team but with this baby coming we want her to get used to just Daddy tucking her in at night.
- waking around 8am every morning which has been such a blessing because I don't have much energy these days and need all the sleep I can get.
- eating like a toddler: enjoys the sweet stuff, declines food if she's pre-occupied, doesn't want to sit to eat but she knows the rules, and has a keen ear for the word "snack."
- transitioning to one nap a day. She may go every other day without her second nap, but will sleep if we put her down in the morning so she's not quite ready yet for just one.
- loving Ice Pops-- you know, the kind that you buy warm and liquidy in the store and freeze for your enjoyment later. With all this heat, we share at least two a day.
- playing on the playground and going down swings all by herself! I still tend to stay real close to her because I'm scared she might fall and that's at least 5 feet. But, alas, she's Miss Independent and has no fear of her own to slide down and do it all over again. The climber/slide combo we got for her this month has helped her build up her courage.
- building towers with one-peg legos.
- sitting at the table instead of her highchair for mealtimes. We've put up the high chair (unless we have company and need the chair) until Camden can make use of it in about 5 months or so and brought out her booster seat.
- she's more aware of her diaper now and will grab it often but she's not indicating that it's dirty yet so I'm just considering this a preliminary sign to potty training.

That's about all I can think of, although I might be adding more later.

Love to all!


P.S. I forgot to mention... she says and points to her "eye" simultaneously. She popped out 3 more teeth for total of seven (one molar and the remaining two top front incisors). She's been sleeping on her pillow and not just a bare sheet for a week now. Most times, she's not using it but that's where we lay her and I'm hoping she realizes the benefits soon.