dual personalities

Safe travels to my mother, sister and dad, who begin their trek west today — we can’t wait to hear all about it. In the meantime, I have updates to share!

Katie is nearly 16 months old and is truly toddling around with confidence these days. After getting through yet another cold, she has had a happy week of walking in and out of rooms, fetching this or that, declaring when she wants something (most adorably a “bop,” or frozen mango popsicle), and also following directions. She seems to have a pretty impressive handle on her little world. She’s also very sophisticated:

In recent weeks, Katie has grown much more attached to her stuffed animals and dolls. “Snuffles” and “Clown Bear” have places of honor in the nursery, while “baba” gets carried around all over.

I was very touched the first time Katie said “mama, baba” while I was holding her and she was holding her baby doll. They say that dolls and animals teach toddlers about empathy, and I can see that – she cares for them! (Snuffles gets his hair brushed each night when I comb Katie’s hair; Katie routinely gives Clown Bear a kiss if she has just given one to mommy and daddy, etc.)

On the flip side, Katie enjoys her fair share of destruction. Currently, her favorite game is annihilating a perfect row of rainbow sheep and then immediately signing “more” for us to line them up again.

Well, I’ve shown my true “mom” colors here with this evidence that I find her endlessly fascinating. Let me just add this picture of her proudly displaying the remote and coaster basket while wearing a raincoat in case you need one more dose of darling: