18 Months

Today Miss Hadleigh Claire is 18 months old. She seems like such a big girl!

She has definitely gotten the whole walking thing under control and looks like she is about to startg running. Watching her toddle around the house is just hilarious. She loves her shoes and socks (ocks) and insists on wearing them for the entire day.

Her vocabulary seems to expand everyday which is just amazing to me. It seems that she understands me completely and is always demonstrating her new knowledge of words. We enjoy singing the head, shoulders, knees and toes song. She recognizes each part and can find it on her body and on mine. We also regularly read Sandra Boynton's book Horns to Toes and she LOVES pointing to everything, especially her belly button, or her baby, as she calls it. She was actually walking around church last Sunday and showing the people around her belly button. It was hilarious. Her animal sounds have increased too and now she is starting to do a more realistic pig sound.

In teaching her all the animal sounds we always asked "what does a little girl say" and we taught her that a little girl says hi. Last week I had her on my ever shrinking lap, trying to sing to her before bedtime. She was a little upset, and was more in favor of reading a book. After a little struggle she started to cry, and I said, "It isn't time to read a book, little girl" to which she responded with a tearful "hi". It took me a minute to figure out why she had stopped crying and was saying hi, and then I just busted up laughing.

She is still a great sleeper, taking a two hour afternoon nap and then she sleeps from 6pm-8am. The nighttime sleep has been great for me because it allows me time in the morning to get up, get breakfast, shower, check email, read and then get her up and ready. I love my mornings!

Reading is our favorite past time. When we get up for the day or after her nap we spend some time reading from her "big girl" collection of books. Those are the books that have paper pages that can be ripped. She LOVES Wild about Books, and The Little Green Island, as well as some of the Dr. Seuss books and anything Peter Rabbit. At other times of the day we read from her board books. I have two baskets full of books (way more books than toys) and I still feel like I need more because she LOVES to read. She loves the Sandra Boynton books Moo, Baa, LaLaLa and helps recite the book to us, an the she loves all of her peek-a-boo books and anything with animals. The Very Hungry Caterpillar has been another fav.

She is still completely a daddy's girl and obsessed with Dave. She asks for him all day long while he is at work and when he comes in the door she squeals in delight. We haven't been able to get her to understand that I am not Dada. She doesn't really call me anything, but when pressed she will call me Dada. We have been trying to teach her Mama, but she doesn't seem to put the two together. The closest she gest to saying Mama is Mimi, but she doesn't link that name to me, so I don't know. I guess one day she will figure it out.

At church, Hadleigh has just graduated to the Toddler II class. She has done a great job, enjoys the workers and loves to walk into the class by herself, and no crying! She did the same this week at her little morning class. However, she had some trouble in the nursery during my Bible study yesterday. I am hoping it was just a first week thing and not an indication of trouble to come.

We love to dance and love music. Every morning I will put on a CD, she really enjoys Indelible Grace's new CD Beams of Heaven (that is right in this family we dance to hymns). She listens and will rock back and forth and clap and giggle. She really likes it when Dave dances to the hymns. And now as I am typing this I just think, this is a really odd family thing to do. But hye, who made up the rule that you can't learn great truths about God and dance at the same time?

Another interesting development this month has been a couple of fears. She is now afraid of thunder and sirens. Dave is really big on encouraging her to overcome these fears, so he tried to teach her to clap and say "yea they got the bad guy" when she hears a siren. Well, it hasn't caught on, exactly. The other day she heard a siren (we hear sirens many times a day) and got really concerned and started running toward me, wimpering and once she got to my arms she started clapping while still wimpering. I felt like she was saying...ok, I know I am supposed to clap and maybe if I do the sirens will go away. I just laughed. I mentioned this incident to my friend, Kris and she encouraged me to pray with her. Novel idea...pray? Why had that not crossed my mind? I am so unspiritual! So, now we pray instead of clapping.

I think that is the update. I should proably also mention that has been given to some fits recently when she doesn't get her way. Lovely. As well, she is quite possessive of "her" toys or anything she thinks might be hers. These things serve to remind us that she was born with a sin nature...darn original sin. It also makes me aware of my need for Christ to give wisdom to me as we teach her about God. It also reminds me to be in constant prayer that she will grow to be a lover of God, and that she will never know a day without him. That is our prayer for both of our girls. How amazing and gracious it would be for our girl to be able to say that they have always known the Lord.