Toddler Traits

Dear Mackenzie,

You are 16 months old now--a full-blown toddler! I love everything about this stage because you are sleeping through the night (most of the time), I don't have to worry about potty training yet (ugh, soooo not looking forward to going through that for a fourth time) and there are so many cute toddler behaviors! For example:

- You are always saying "aaah," "unngh," "dadadada" and other toddlerese phrases. When you want something from me, you say, "Ungh ungh ungh ungh" and when I correctly guess what it is that you want, you smile a satisfied smile and utter an approving, "Unnnnngh."

- When I am at the kitchen sink, you often run up behind me and hug my legs really tightly.

- I was feeding you strawberries one day while you were sitting in my lap and held one strawberry in the air for a second while I was talking to JieJie. Apparently, you reeeeally wanted that strawberry and didn't want to wait, so you grabbed my hand, pulled it to your mouth and forced me to feed you the strawberry!

- When you fall down and hurt your hands, you hold them up to me so that I can kiss them and make them better.

- You give me the sweetest, softest little baby kisses on the lips. When you're not feeling that affectionate, though, and I ask you for a kiss, you merely turn your cheek toward me so that I can kiss it.

- You are more of a daredevil than your siblings were at the same age. The other day, you managed to climb from the daybed's side railing to the back of a nearby desk chair but then you got stuck and couldn't get down. Thank goodness I was in the room to get you down before you fell and that Second GuhGaw was actually sitting in the desk chair at the time so that it didn't topple over from your weight.

- You have advanced from crawling up the stairs to walking up the stairs while I hold your hands.

- You are so good at bedtime. Once I put you in your crib, you climb into your sleep sack yourself and hold out your hands for me to put mittens on them (you still scratch your face while you sleep, hence the need for mittens; however, they only make scratch-proof mittens for newborns so the "mittens" I use now are actually your socks). 

- When I carry you up to Daddy's office door, you knock on it for me.

- You touch your fingertips together whenever you want me to sing "Itsy Bitsy Spider" to you (which is a lot).

- You always sway back and forth when you hear music.

- You squeal with laughter when you are being chased.

- When I put lotion on you after your bath, you like to put it on me, too. It gets messy, though, because you like to dunk your entire fist into the lotion jar and then smear the lotion across my cheeks and chest.

- You learned how to nod but you do it with your entire head and torso, which is so cute!

- When Daddy, your siblings and I are all laughing really hard because we're talking about something funny, you laugh really hard, too, even though you have no idea what we're talking about. You don't want to be left out!

Love,

Mom