Cressey: 17 Months

Cressey gets jealous when HG crawls up in one of our laps and insists on getting up there too (which infuriates HG).

If left alone in the pantry (one of her favorite places), she can be found throwing stuff off the shelves and into the trash can.

She’s obsessed with hats and will wear HG’s riding helmet or John’s baseball hats for hours, crying if you try to take it away. She’ll also put my purse or necklaces around her neck. Loves to wear ponytail holders as bracelets.

As soon as John comes in the door, she follows him everywhere he goes- to his closet, bathroom, seat at the kitchen table. Little shadow.

She has a few moles now- under her cheek, on her thigh, etc.

Constantly babbles and hearing more words and phrases now: hat, head, heeeey, let’s go, there you go. I swear I heard her say, “Where’d Hewen Gwace go?,” when HG hopped out at school last week. When you ask her what a cat says, she’ll softly say, “Meow!” (about half of the time). She’ll mimic noises you make, and she loves to gasp.

Climbs in and out of chairs constantly. In fact, for the first time this week at lunch with Hope, I let her sit next to me in a booth instead of a high chair, and she was entertained for almost 40 minutes. She is pretty fearless, and while she’s climbing on a bed or other high surface, she’ll roll over on her tummy and slide off…even if the ground is nowhere in sight.

She. Moves. Constantly. If she’s awake, she is moving. She will sit in my lap for a minute or two after her milky sometimes, but it’s rare.

She can see over the top of the kitchen table, so she pulls everything off and wants every drop of food she can spy.

If one of us is eating, she HAS to be eating that food as well.

Hates to be left alone in a room if we are at home. Major Velcro baby. (I asked John if there were such a thing as ‘toddler elbow’ like tennis elbow?) If I walk out of sight, she FREAKS OUT. But if we are out in public, she will happily run from me and not stop when I scream her name.

She’s almost running. Kind of a stubby little run but much faster than her Frankenstein walk. Will run to any grandparent she sees.

Hates the car seat, even with the DVD player. The only thing she hates more than the car is getting her nails cut. Disaster.

Still addicted to her lovey (white bunny paci). We have tried to limit just to bedtime, but she’s been so fussy with teething that we often will give it to her in the witching hour (4-5 p.m.). She sleeps with other animals in the bed, but she isn’t attached to any of them.

Just taking one two-hour nap in the mid morning. Sometimes I think she could go back down around 2 or 3 (usually while we are waiting in carpool), but then she’d be up so late so we push through. At bedtime, she likes to read a few books, and then she’s ready to lay in her bed. I’ll scratch her back or rub her head for a minute or two, and then she puts herself to sleep.

LOVES PDO. A few weeks ago, I would walk through the halls before dropping her off and help her warm up. After seeing all the other kids playing, she’d happily go into her class without a fuss. (First time with no tears was the fourth time on Aug 24.) Just this past week though, I’d stop at her classroom to hand off her bags, and she’d put her little arms out to the teacher and then want her to put her down in the classroom to run off to play. She usually takes a two-hour nap there too- ON HER MAT. Can you believe it?! (She actually took a nap recently at Spiffer’s on a mat too.) On August 21, when I picked her up from PDO, she gave me the biggest kiss right on the lips (which is really rare).

Loves shoes now and will bring them to you to put them on her.

Can understand simple tasks like ‘bring me your diaper', ‘find the other shoe,’ etc.

She loves straws, but we finally found a bigger sippy cup that she’ll drink a big cup of milk out of (still a soft top).

Loves Mickey and Puppy Dog Pals on tv.

Still loves walks in the stroller.

She’s really kind to and gentle with the kitties, and they’ll sit and let her pet them.

On Sept 2nd, I spotted two cuspids coming in on top.

On Sept 13th, she had her first public lay-in-the-floor meltdown. We’ve started Little Gym this semester, and she is like a bull in a china shop and laughs the whole time. But when I told her that she couldn’t take a drum stick off the mat like her teacher said, she lost it.

On Sept 14th, I was standing at the sink with her wrapped around my legs as usual, but then I felt something hit my feet. I looked down to see that she had taken off her dirty diaper and was standing there naked. PANIC!