Sixteen Months Old

Madeline is 16 months old today!

She has shown many moods lately.  One of our favorites is her silly mood.

Her angry moods are quite impressive.

Here she's just slightly perturbed at being given an apple when she probably wanted something like ice cream.  This was when she had just caught a nasty bug a couple weeks ago, followed by her first ear infection.

For a long time it was a challenge to get Maddy interested in books.  She's just recently started getting into them.  She raided Ben's bookshelf and loves the Dora the Explorer books.  At least it's not the TV show.  She also loves any books with pictures of cats or bears.

Again, the face.  She likes to cruise around the coffee table.  It's the perfect height for her to stand up straight.  And there are usually all kinds of goodies for her to grab off the table.  She loves finding mugs of coffee.  The carpet in the family room is such a disaster.

I'm thrilled that we're allowed to start letting her sit up with some back support.  But here she was trying slide to the floor and accidentally got into a sitting position, then couldn't figure out how to get out of it.  I snapped a photo, then rescued her.  Bad momma.

She spends a lot of time during dinner sitting up in her high chair with some blankets behind her back for support.  She lets us know when she gets tired of it.  Sometimes she gets a little punchy, as seen here.

Other things this month... She asks for "more" by saying "my" and refuses to do the hand signs  anymore for anything other than "milk."  When Mike leaves for work in the morning, Maddy routinely waves and says "bye" to him.  She climbs the stairs A LOT.  She has settled into one nap a day; if I'm lucky, she sleeps for 2 hours.  She is still resisting the sippy cup and sometimes cries for her bottle.  Or her pacifier - that's an addiction that I'll be addressing soon.  She is slowly warming up to strangers and acquaintances.  Now that the weather is (too) warm Mike has brought her into the yard and tried to put her down on the grass - she's not at all a fan of that.  But she does love being outside, playing with leaves and plants, and feeling the breeze.  She can't have enough teddy bears and sometimes hugs two at a time.  We are amazed on a daily basis by how adorable she is.