16 Months

Delly, you are 16 months old. You are running around like you’ve been up on your feet for years, and you are talking up a storm. You have quite a few (barely recognizable) words, but the biggest change is that your constant babbling and chattering is now very conversational, with varying intonation and gesticulations and pointed looks and apparently great meaning. You like to walk around with phones (or things that look like phones, like remote controls etc) and hold them to your ear and say Hi! Hi! Hi! In the morning when we finally give in to your distress calls and come into your room, before we can even reach the light switch your hand shoots up into the air to wave as you yell Hi!

One of the first times you said please, you happened to have also thrown your hands in the air at the same time. We praised you so heartily, that you got the idea that the hands in the air thing is the sign for please, so now every time we prompt you to ask nicely for something, your hands shoot up and you say Pees!

This month you mastered the stairs, and you can scoot down them on your tummy like a bullet. You're getting more into climbing, too. You were able to climb onto the sofas and chairs for a little while already, but now you like to do it more often and you’ve started climbing and standing on other things too, like your kapsule chair and our heat registers, and onto Daddy when he lays down on the floor to do his stretches. You climb onto him like a cowgirl and bounce around. I guess it’s not doing an ounce of good for his back, but it sure is funny. We just keep him hopped up on muscle relaxers and let you have your fun.

You can count all the way to 2 now. You are mastering your negotiation skills, and when we tell you that you can have One of something, you say Two! How many feet do you have? Two! How many ears do you have? Two! Etc. You're pretty much brilliant.





You've just recently started getting separation anxiety. Daddy almost always drives you to school in the morning, and when he goes outside now to warm up the cars, you think he's leaving without you and you freak out. I have to hold you and watch him through the window so you can see him outside to calm you down. When Sarah came over to watch you on Christmas day so we could go see a movie, as soon as you saw her you got all whiney and clingy and were stuck to our legs like glue. You even do it a little bit when we drop you off at school now, hugging our legs when we bring you in and take off your jacket. Though I don't want you ever feeling distress, it does seem like comforting evidence of how much we're bonded as a family. You've been in fulltime daycare for most of your life, you love it there, and sometimes it has seemed like you actually prefer it there with all the fun and playing -- but you really get it now, that even though you spend most days there, you belong with us.

Love,
Mommy