My Little Ham (at 14 months)

I cannot tell you how many people in the last month have told me that Hannah is "a ham." I don't know if it's her age or her personality, but I am beginning to wonder as more and more people say that. She doesn't seem to be very bashful around strangers! From the people on the buses in Disneyworld, to the stockers at Wal-Mart, to the shoppers at Sam's, she seems to attract a lot of attention. She is a little flirt. Is this a picture of what is to come?

One of my favorite new things she is doing is making this face where she opens her mouth wide open. She does it a lot now when I pull out the camera, but she will usually do it mimicking someone else who is doing it. I think it is so funny. Speaking of mimicking, she is starting to do that a lot more. One day, I saw a squished bug on Josh's back (he didn't know it was there) and I put my hands on my face and started shrieking. She put her hands up on her cheeks like mine and started squealing. It was so funny. Also, like me, she loves to carry around a pen and paper to make her “lists.” She also will pick up the cordless phone and push a few buttons and then put it up to her ear. One day she seriously dialed 991... that was close! She also managed to call Josh at work all by herself with the cell phone (she only had to push the green button twice since it was the last person I called). Another new favorite of mine is when she plays peek-a-boo by herself. She holds her blanket over her face and then drops it. I yell “peek-a-boo” and she laughs hysterically. I love it.

About a month or two ago, she started hearing the garage door go up and knows that means that daddy is home from work. She runs to the back door, and then she claps for him when he walks in. It is adorable. It's fun that she is so excited to see him. Clapping is her way of showing her joy. Also, whenever someone claps on TV, she stops what she is doing and claps along with them. Even if she is tired, it's like she feels obligated to clap if someone else is. She also loves to dance anytime music comes on TV. It's so funny.

Today when I was on the phone with Jennifer and putting away laundry, I heard Hannah crying in my bedroom. I walked in and didn't see her anywhere. She had managed to crawl under our bed and was in the very middle and couldn't figure out how to get out. She was fine after I helped her out. Too funny...

Another new favorite of hers is stairs. She is really starting to master them, but it still makes me nervous. At church, she always makes a mad dash for the nearest set of stairs. She gets really mad if you pick her up! And speaking of climbing, she climbs on furniture now. Every time I leave the living room, she crawls onto the chair where we keep the laptop and starts playing with it. She changes settings and pulls up screens I’ve never seen. Sometimes it takes awhile to fix it! She also pulled two keys off of it, but Josh was able to get them back on without a problem. While we're on the subject of damaging technology, we lost our cell phone a couple of weeks ago, and we're pretty sure she wandered off with it somewhere. We have looked everywhere we can think to look. My fear now is that it left with the trash...

As far as eating goes, she is becoming much more independent. She really does not like to be fed. She is getting the hang of using her own spoon and fork, but it can be pretty messy. She also likes to flip her tray off the highchair when she's done... did I mention messy? Basically, my floors are always dirty. She's also started to figure out how to get food for herself. The other day, she walked into the kitchen, pulled the bread off the counter, got herself a piece, and walked around the house happily eating her snack that she "prepared." She also got into my chocolate stash and started eating away. She LOVES chocolate. Since her first birthday when I started allowing more sweets, my mom has started to spoil her a little. She has been baking her chocolate chip cookies in the afternoons, and she is CRAZY about them!

On the sleeping front, we transitioned to one nap around her 13 month birthday. She started sleeping longer at night (about 13 hours instead of 11 ½) and less during the day. Her nap is about 2 hours in the afternoon. I think this schedule is a little easier and definitely helps on Sundays. She used to get so tired in the nursery having to be in there for 4 hours with no morning nap. She definitely recognizes bedtime and usually goes down easily. Today, she and I were playing with her baby doll and I started singing "Rock-A-Bye-Baby" to it like I do when Hannah goes to bed. She ran and got her blanket to take a nap! Josh and I started singing it again tonight at bedtime and she ran and got her blanket. How cute is that?

Hannah had her first cold this week. It was pretty bad. I called the doctor three times, and this is the first time I have ever called the doctor for sickness. They said it sounded like croup; she sounded like a barking seal. I hate that she got sick, but I'd say we did pretty well to make it 14 months-props to breastfeeding! Is it a coincidence that we just stopped that about six weeks ago? Maybe, but I know it helped a lot. She is also currently working on her molars. She has three, so only one more to go in this set. Some have been bad, some have been easy, but it seems like teething is never ending… and we’re just about halfway done! She seems to get more fun every day, which is the only thing that makes it bearable that time is going so fast.... She is the joy of my life!