Letter Month Fifteen

Dear Sarah Graves,

At fifteen months old you are doing so many things and starting to become such a big girl!  You are working on feeding yourself, becoming interested in coloring, enjoying climbing and playing outside, and starting to talk. 

You are becoming pretty good at feeding yourself finger foods.  You love to eat bread and bananas.  Those are two of your favorite foods that you never get enough of.  You also love pancakes.  We make some pancakes for you with oatmeal and blueberries in them that you just love!  You will run to your highchair and stand there waiting to be seated to eat some.  It doesn't matter if you finished eating five minutes before, if you see a banana or bread, you have to have some.  You are starting to drink water from your cup more, but you won't consider drinking any kind of milk out of your cup.  You do love the one bottle a day that you still get.  Lovie tells me how much you enjoy it and how excited you are when you see it.  You wake up ready to nurse every morning.  When I pick you up, you show me the sign for milk and happily snuggle up against me for our wake-up routine.  It's the best part of my day, too.  You have started working on feeding yourself with a spoon.  You want to do it, but get frustrated with how slow it is.  You will get better at it with time.

You are starting to play in a whole new way.  You enjoy trying to color with crayons.  We have been anxious to see if you are left handed like your dad and me, but it looks like you prefer to use your right hand.  That's just fine with us.  You manage to make marks on the paper, but don't seem to put enough pressure to really color.  You'll get it.  You love to go to playgrounds.  You are very strong and determined, so you find a way to get to a lot of the fun.  You enjoy sliding and with some help will try to climb on the structures.  You still love books and you really like your baby and your stuffed animals.  You hug your stuffed toys to you so sweetly. 

You are working so hard on saying more words.  You say a form of banana that sounds something like bulala.  You are definite about what you are saying, though.  You are able to say ma ma, but you prefer to say ba ba.  That makes me laugh!  You say something that sounds like ceee whenever you see Lucy.  You also say woof woof any time you see a four legged, furry animal like a cat.  You are definite that tigers say grrrrr and cows say moo.  You will usually tell me that chicken is cluck cluck.  Some day we will have to have a talk about the fact that the animal is the same as what you get on your plate, but for now you respond cluck cluck any time you hear chicken.  You can also say baby.  You point to other small kids who may be older than you or younger and say baby.  You are also able to say side for outside.  You will point at your swingset and say, "side".  Who knew these simple words would delight me so much!  

Lovie has taught you how to cross your arms over your chest to sign "I love you".  That simply melts my heart.  Sometimes you are busy or holding something so you just put one arm up.  I find that funny.  You can blow kisses and that is one of the sweetest things.  You make a kissing sound and everything, which is just precious.  You have also learned to follow the directions when we sing, "If You're Happy and You Know It".  You will clap your hands or pat your head depending on the verse.  You will also dance around when you hear singing.
You are getting to the point that you don't want both a morning and an afternoon nap.  You are starting to stay awake until 10 or 11 in the morning, but you just can't make it until your afternoon nap.  So, we are working on transition to just the afternoon, but putting off your morning nap and then you snooze a bit in the car in the late afternoon with Daddy.  I think you need more nap than that, but we're hanging in there as you grow out of two long naps.    You have so much personality and people are just drawn to you.  I am always amazed how many people come up to me to compliment me on you.  I think you are the most beautiful and charming thing I have ever been so fortunate to know, but for other people to see it too, that amazes me.  I have said since the moment I knew you, I am fortunate to be your mother and love every moment of it (okay, maybe the angry bobcat crying on the changing table are not the most joyful moments, but they don't last long).

Love,

Momma