Sweet 16

Sweet 16 MONTHS, that is. Cora just turned 16 months about 1 week ago. And let me say this once. Sometimes I think she is 16 months going on 3 years old. She is getting taller, thinning out, and looking less and less like a baby every single day. She is growing and developing and changing right before my eyes, but it is getting harder and harder to pinpoint true "milestones". What I have been most impressed with this last month is how she imitates Lee and me.

I may have mentioned before in a past blog how she brushes her teeth with us. She has now taken it a step further. She rinses her tooth brush in the water. She uses my makeup brushes to apply her own makeup. She even puts the powder brush in the powder. But those kinds of things really aren't that exciting. They're cute...definitely. But, you expect that with a child. It just feels good to have a wee one imitating you. What shocked me the other day was I handed her my keys and she walked over to the door and tried to insert them into the door knob! I thought to myself, "Wait a second, Cora! You were actually paying that close of attention when I unlock the door?" Oh my! The old saying 'kids are sponges' is true!

Cora is also starting to become quite the handful. She climbs on everything! She has no fear of falling. None. She pulls herself onto the toilet, then uses the toilet paper holder as a foot step to launch herself onto the counter. Most of the time, I think I gave birth to a monkey. They've even started mentioning at daycare that they can't take their eyes off of her for a split second. She tries to climb everything there, too! She loves it because she can get to places none of the other little ones can. They have sandbox table and she climbs into it and sits in the sand. They finally gave up with her and let her sit in the sand box while the other kids play around her. This kid knows how to get her way! I am working on collecting photos for a blog entry on this one. ;)

Even though Cora is growing and changing, some things about her haven't changed at all. She is still a horrible teether! I mean horrible. As of her 16 month birthday, she had 8 teeth. Four on top and four on bottom. However, we were up with her while she screamed and screamed and screamed. We've become so used to her teething that when she is screaming at the top of her lungs in pure agony, we know it is teeth. We give her tylenol and cuddle her real close. She is normally in such a fit we can't even get her to chew on a cold washcloth or something. It is awful. Now, only 1 week later, she has three molars that have broken through the gum. Two on the top and 1 on the bottom. I've been calling her Camel Cora because of her diastema between her incisors and molars. Her canines haven't come in yet (which is normal I believe). Anyways, camels have an enormous diastema between their front and back teeth throughout their whole life. The things you learn in mammalogy when needing to identify skulls. :) I am hoping her 4th molar comes in here soon for the sake of MJ and Carol when they come. On top of it all, we are all fighting a nasty cold. Yuck!
 Note: It has been two days since I have been back to edit this. Turns out, Cora's fourth molar has started to pop through. This brings her total count to 12 teeth!

Lee has best described Cora as a thrill seeker. She loves to be startled, falling from high places, swinging, twirling, thrown. Her latest thrill seeking adventure is something we refer to as "timber". She stands stiff as a board with her hands above her head and falls straight onto her face and belly. Normally she walks up to where I am sitting and does this completely confident that I will catch her. Now, she goes up stairs to fall onto her bed. She has even started stacking pillows to fall onto them. I really need to get it on camera. Her face is priceless right before she falls.

Here is the infamous list:

New Words

• Reg (sounds like dedge or yedge) Our dog is named Reg and she loves him very much. She will go on this long diatribe about who knows what and her last word will be Reg. I know she is trying to tell me something about him. I just don't know what it is yet.
• "What's this?" or "This?" (sounds like ahhh dis or dis)
• varoom or zoom (sounds like dooooooom) She has a book about Amos the Old Dog who drives his couch around. This is where she gets this word. 

New Signs

• Flower
• No. She passionately shakes her head back and forth. She still doesn't tell me No. She only answers me with No.
• Milk
• She put her first signs together the other. She signed "milk" and "more" the other night when she wanted a glass of milk before bed. Awesome!!

Here is her official 16 month photos. I really love how this month turned out! I hope you all enjoy these as much as Lee and I have.

My long, long posts that are few and far between as starting to tire me out. :) I am hopefully going to start writing shorter, more frequent posts that tell little stories about Cora. I think my readers will also like that considering I have been writing chapter books as of late. Make me keep my promise! I have my first post in my head already!

Lee and I are headed to Quebec City, Quebec this week. Stay tuned for a recap next. Ohhh, this means another long post.... ;)