Keira: 15 months

Keira is 15 months old today. She has grown up so much since her birthday. The rate at which toddlers learn and grow is astounding!

Keira is a walking machine. It took her until 13 months to walk, but now she zips around the house, park and library. She likes to play chase- it is especially funny to run away with just a diaper on (or nothing at all!) while Mom tries to help her get dressed.

She is becoming quite communicative. Keira has a handful of words she says: mom (mamam), dad (da), please (pzzzzz), baby (daydi), dog (da). Her word for book may also be mamam, just like mom. We have a Llama Llama board book she loves to read, so now she wanders around with a book saying mama mamam. But... of course the word for anything she wants comes out as mamam... 

Keira's please is my favorite. Since she started saying it a couple of weeks ago, we hear constant strings of pzzzzz... all day long. I gave her a snack of craisins in a snack cup. She finished them, brought the cup to me, held it up and said pzzzz.... asking for more. How can you resist that? 

She is so good at gesturing what she would like. It's like playing charades all day long. She pats the couch when she wants help up, she puts a marker in my hand and pulls at the cap asking me to take it off, she brings her shoes, sits down and sticks out her foot to put them on.... I love it.

Keira is all about the food. All day long she wanders back and forth from the kitchen asking for something to eat. She pulls at the fridge door, pzzzz.... I swear she is never satisfied. She eats two breakfasts a day. One first thing when she wakes up (literally, I change her diaper, put her on the floor, and she marches downstairs right to the kitchen) and a second when Rara Park sits down to eat her own breakfast. Anytime she spots anyone with food, she must have some as well.

Keira pretty much feeds herself for all of her meals. Which I love. She makes a mess, but that's ok. She is actually getting pretty good at working the spoon. She is able to scoop up some food and make it to her mouth without spilling. Of course she still spills occasionally, and sometimes forgoes the spoon for using her hands, but over all she does a pretty decent job of feeding herself.

Now that the weather has warmed up some around here, we have spent more time outside. This girl loves it. She gets her shoes and heads straight for the door. She even reaches for the door knob, which I'm not too keen on. Good thing she isn't tall enough to open it yet!

She loves playing on the slide. And I love that Hailey is big enough to catch her at the bottom. I can be at the top of the slide with Keira and Hailey at the bottom. Playing at the park is a lot more fun with a big sister!

I just recently started singing the Wheels on the Bus with Keira. She loves it. She asks for it over and over and over again. She waves her arms around and makes a string of noises like she is singing. As soon as I start singing she lights right up. She also especially loves Hailey's rendition of the Monsters on the Bus and copies Hailey's monster noises to a T. Today at storytime at the library they sang If You're Happy and You Know It... clap your hands, spin around... Keira loved it! 

Her immitations are hilarious. She has started babbling, but it really isn't any sort of string of sounds that are recognizable. She just moves her tongue around in her mouth and voices a sound. She looks straight at you, sometimes just inches from your face, and so dead serious tells you some sort of something. The best is when she laughs afterwards, like she has said the funniest thing. Sometimes she leans in real close and whispers her message, then shakes her head widly back and forth, copying the movement with her arms saying "aaahhh". And of course afterwards laughs at how silly she is.

Keira folds her arms for a brief two seconds during a prayer. She even bows her head and mumbles something. Just after her birthday she started noticing us bowing our heads to pray at dinnertime, and started copying.  

Only 3 more months left until our little lady is in nursery! No... we're not counting down the days... :) Maybe by this summer Kyle will be active in church again. 1:00 church with a 12-17 month old child is no fun at all. When Keira is tired she is a wild child. There isn't much containing her, so Kyle usually comes home after sacrament meeting to put her down for a nap and then comes back to pick Hailey and I up.

Keira is a busy body, but we love her. She is so much fun and such a happy child- so long as she is constantly fed and gets a nap in. :)