I finally have internet again. In fact I’ve had internet since Wednesday, but during my web break I got into playing Dragon Age 2 on the xbox – and by “got into” I really mean “became totally obsessed with.” The only reason I’m on the computer right now is because Kate is asleep and Den managed to wrench the xbox away from me.

Kate is an adorable 14 1/2 months old and I am constantly astounded by how much fun a toddler is. I was never able to picture anything beyond having a tiny baby and how wonderful that is (and it is! I love little bitty babies!), could never picture myself with a small child. But my little baby inevitably morphed into a small person and it all makes sense now. It’s actually kind of crazy how excited I get when she does something like put a block through a hole or says a new word.

Words are her new thing. She loves her picture book that has “kitty” and “dah” (dog) in it, and just the other day when I was running through the pictures she repeated “ball” back to me. Well it was “bah!” but she says it consistently at the picture of the ball. She’s trying to say “fish” but she gets caught up on the “sh” sound so it sounds like “sheh!” But again, it’s consistent at the picture of the fish, repeating back to me. Then she very clearly said “shews!” at the red shoes. And of course she says “bye!” every time she closes a book. I have heard her a few times in her highchair saying, “Oh!” when she drops her sippy cup over the side.

The book obsession is in full force. She loves her books. L-o-v-e-s. She has a huge stack of board books in the living room and she will bring us every single one of them. She walks up to me, squawks to get my attention (no matter what I’m doing), hands the book over, does a happy dance and then sits either facing me on on my lap so I can read the book to her. She watches intently as I read and point to the words and pictures, she helps me turn the pages. As we turn the last page she says “bye!” and then either shoves the book back in my face or leaves it with me and goes to get another one. I have to admit that after about five times I start hiding the books behind me in the hopes that she’ll play with something else for a few minutes. We love books ourselves and really want to foster an enjoyment of books in her, but dude, seriously, we KNOW there are dinosaurs. Got it. Let’s play with blocks for a while, k?

She’s eating like crazy right now, thankfully eating foods she had been refusing for a couple of weeks while not feeling well. Now she’s back at the chicken and eggs and sometimes strawberries again too. She’s also nursing all the darn time – there have been times where I say, “Sorry, boob bar is closed. Here’s your sippy.” But she is for some reason not so thrilled with her sippy today either, so she takes a few sips, drops it, then is back tugging at my shirt. Now I enjoy nursing her still and have no intention of weaning her soon, but not when I’m in the middle of something! Jeez. So I have a feeling a growth spurt is on the horizon here.

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We have been doing some very fun trips this summer, such as to the zoo and the aquarium. Granted I’m pretty sure we could have gone to a pond for free and amused her just as much, but the zoo and the aquarium are far more interesting for me, and at this age that’s what really matters, right? We’ve seen a lot of animals, big and small. Kate even seemed to actually care once in a while, that was pretty exciting. However, there is one thing she does NOT like: animal mouths.

On our second zoo trip this summer we got the opportunity to go up on a platform and actually hand-feed a giraffe. A giraffe! That’s pretty damn cool! So I went up there with a banana in my hand and held it out to this giraffe, who slowly plodded over. Kate was fine. The giraffe looked at us. Kate looked back. The giraffe stuck out its tongue and pulled the banana out of my hand. Kate screamed and clutched my arm. She was sick that day so I wrote it off as her being off her game. I mean, this kid isn’t really scared of much, she loves being startled and chased and “dropped”, not to mention she loves our cats and (big) dogs and interacts with them regularly.

So then Kate was in her stroller at the aquarium, and we were watching the beluga whale swim back and forth in front of the big glass window, playing with the spectators. Kate seemed to be amused by this large thing moving around. Then the whale opened its mouth wide and mouthed the glass. Kate threw herself backward and to the side in her stroller and screamed. I had to pull her out and give her a big hug. She calmed down quickly… until the whale opened its mouth again. Then she gave another – though smaller – little scream.

Even the eels in the tank frightened her. Well, not the eels themselves – she climbed up on the ledge in front of the glass and tried poking them. They swam back and forth and she patted the glass happily. Then, yep, one of them turned and nibbled at her finger through the glass. And yet again she shrieked and almost fell backwards.

So apparently not only does she understand what a mouth is, she understands that animal mouths have teeth and can hurt. Pretty sure that’s a lesson the cats taught her.

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I leave you with some recent pictures and apologies for the extended silence.