Fourteen

In honor of Caroline being 14 months old today, I thought I'd list 14 things about her. (Warning: this will probably only be interesting to family, but I'd like to remember all these things when she's 14 years old!)

1. She LOVES shoes! If she's not wearing them (or even if she is) she'll try to put them on herself, or try to put our shoes on us. Or she'll just walk around with one or two, and she loves pulling them down off the shelf:

2. She's learning her body parts. She's not 100% yet, but most of the time she'll point to her head (or hair), eyes, nose, ears, mouth (or teeth), tongue, feet and her belly when asked. When I tell her to brush her teeth, she opens her mouth and points to her teeth and heads toward the bathroom.

3. Her favorite body part is her belly! When you ask her where her belly is she'll lift up her shirt and point to her belly button and say "belly" (or what sounds like belly). Sometimes she'll even look for your belly and pull up your shirt - okay around the house, but I wouldn't want her doing it in public!

4. She's learning some sign language. I'm not too big a proponent of this for a lot of words as I think it keeps some kids from talking, but it does really help to know a few signs to reduce frustration before they learn to speak. Caroline's favorite sign is "eat" (ha!) but she signs "more" the most for anything from "please" or "yes" to "I want" or "help." She also knows the sign for "finished (all done)." She'll even sign "more" if she's really tired and we ask her if she wants to go to bed! She'll walk to her room and go to sleep when you put her in bed.

Here she is signing "eat":


5. She doesn't like grass. She's still a little afraid of grass, although she's getting muc h better and will walk on it with shoes on as long as she doesn't fall. If she's barefoot however, she won't go near it - for example, Chris and I were doing some yard work and brought her out and put her on a blanket in the grass (with no shoes on). She didn't get off the blanket the whole time to avoid the grass, even though she wanted to run around:

6. She also doesn't like swimming pools/outdoor water play. We've tried several times to put her in her baby pool in the backyard. She'll sometimes warm up to it and play a little, but most of the time she wants out! Then we tried the pool in Atlanta and she hated it and cried! We'll keep trying and maybe by next summer she'll love it.

7. She has a new wave. Whereas the first wave was a flop-at-the-wrist wave, this new wave is more with her fingers in and out of her palm. It's too cute! And she'll wave at anything that moves and say "hi" or "hey."

8. She'll pretend eat. I play this game with her where I pretend to eat or bite her hand or foot and make this chomping noise. I've been doing it for a while and she always laughs, but she recently started doing it back. She'll do it to her own foot or to mine. It's pretty cute too!

9. She'll do a "bye" kiss. I've been working with her to wave or say "bye" for a while since she was so good at "hi", but instead she'll blow a kiss that sounds like "bye." Every time. There's no "byes" without throwing a BIG kiss!

10. She LOVES animals! Ok, really she's OBSESSED! She hadn't really been around cats or dogs much until recently. She gets SO excited when she sees a dog, even across the street or on TV and giggles and waves and says "hey." She's a little scared and really excited all at the same time and wants to pet the dog or cat and doesn't mind being licked. She likes them so much she watches them on TV (this is a video of her watching a dog video on You Tube):

11. When she's eating something she loves, she'll say "mmm." Her favorites are bananas, crackers, cheese, any veggies, and cheerios.

12. There are a (very) few foods she doesn't like. She's not a big fan of mac 'n' cheese, but will eat it with other things like in Hamburger Helper. She won't eat baked beans; she'll eat ANY other kind of bean (green beans, lima beans, black beans, red beans, etc.), just not baked! She also doesn't like plain rice or pasta. Very unlike her mother when it comes to eating, but that's good!

13. She loves to climb! She's not been very interested in playing with her toys lately. She just wants to climb in an out of chairs and her bumbo. She'll play with her baby doll and blankets are fun too! She also likes to push things around like chairs or her little car or her toy grocery cart. She'll push her cart around, but also likes to ride in it!

14. She LOVES Daddy! Everything is "daddy" and when Daddy's not around she looks for him and says, "Daaaaaadddy!" It's so sweet, I hope she'll always be a Daddy's girl :)

It's so fun being a parent and watching your child grow before your eyes and learn new things every day! We love our little Caroline and all the funny little things she does :)