Wow, time flies when you're busy chasing a rather speedy toddler around. While we were busy cleaning up and chasing after her, she somehow turned 16 months old.
Some things are still true: Maeve is a very happy and very friendly little girl. She is sometimes hesitant around new people, but warms up quickly and is cheeky and quite the ham. And then, some things have changed: we occasionally have these knock-down, drag out tantrums over what seem to be minor things, like not being allowed on the stairs or not being allowed to feed herself yogurt. Tantrums include screaming, throwing herself down on the floor and occasionally hitting. She's independent and wants to do what she wants to do. She definitely has that "redhead temper". She's also a boundary tester, at least when it comes to her mother. She seems to like to do exactly what she has just been told not to do and gives us this look while doing it that seems to say "Do you see me doing what you just told me not to do? And look how cute I am doing it."
She still has only a few words, but does seem to speak in some language known only to her which seems fairly intricate. It's like twin-speak without the twin. She understands everything we say and is pretty good at following directions (when in her favor, of course). She's learning to help us clean up after playing and go to get things if we ask her to. She lets us know when she wants more of something or when she has had enough. It's also meant that we have to start spelling certain things in front of her, especially things she likes, like the B-A-T-H.
She's still a very busy girl and is constantly on the move, whether playing with her toys and pretending to feed her baby doll or eat the strawberries on the pages of her books, or scatter the recycling all over the kitchen. She still loves her books and is always bringing us books to read to her. We've also had a pleasant surprise in that at daycare she has shown interest in using the potty and has successfully peed and pooped several times on the potty in the last week! (we've never been this excited about poop before).
She's completing exhausting for us right now, and completely exciting and loads of fun!
Also, recently her Nana and Opa visited. Maeve had lots of fun with them, even if she did give Nana her cold. While they were in D.C. before visiting ua, there was a second blizzard dumping another 2 feet of snow after 2 feet was already on the ground. And while they were here, there was a blizzard all around us, just not on us. An hour south of us? 2-4 ft. A half hour northwest of us? 4-5 ft. Us? Maybe a couple of inches? So this past weekend, after a significant warm up, we drove an hour to Cousin Debbie's house, we played in the 2 feet of snow that was left (2 feet already melted), in 60 degrees on a sunny day. And took lots of pictures!
