Catching up with Leah - 13 months

Our little Leah is growing from a baby to a little girl. She is developing an adorable personality. She likes to be right in the middle of everything. Here she is "helping" me wash dishes. Mostly she just drinks from the cups, eats the bubbles and pours water everywhere. But it keeps her happy and entertained and I can get a few dishes washed. ( This is her signature crazy hair because she always pulls out the hair pretties I put in.) Every morning I set her on the side of the sink while she "brushes" her teeth and I do her hair. And every morning I say "Ooooh pretty" and she will smile and touch her hair. And every day she ends up looking like this, ah well.

Leah adores being outside. She will scoot over to the front or back sliding glass door and bang on it, to be let out. She loves to crawl around in the grass, pull on my plants and play on the trampoline. But she absolutely loves swinging on the swings. Here she is at my mom's just happy as a clam. She will laugh and squeal as the breeze ruffles her hair swinging back and forth. On the bigger swings I have to hold her and we can't swing as long because mommy gets motion sick.

Yes, Leah can climb onto the trampoline by herself. Abi taught her how. However, she cannot climb off - she just scoots over to the edge and looks over so that a frightened parent runs to her and picks her up. Then she will squirm out of our arms into the grass, scoot over to the ladder and climb back up. You can tell she just knows that she is soooooo big. And while she loves to climb ladders, stools, boxes, onto the couch, stairs, you name it - she still isn't walking. It's not that she can't; she just won't. She took her first steps on June 16th. And she will walk well in between 2 people, even 6 -8 feet away from each other. But she won't just take off and walk around by herself. She's a little chicken. :) If I do stand her up and point her off to walk, she says " No," and sits right down and scoots. I guess that scooting is faster.

"No" ( or "Nooo") as Leah says it is her favorite word. Sometimes no means yes though. But I think her favorite use is when she does something she knows that she is not supposed to be doing and she says "Nooo" to herself. Like when she goes over and pulls the leaves off my plants, "Nooo." This afternoon she scooted right over to the strawberries, pulled the netting up and started picking them and stuffing her little mouth. Leah LOVES strawberries. Here she has at least 2 in her mouth and one in her hand. But we have a great crop this year of big, sweet strawberries so I guess there are plenty to share.

Leah is starting to say several words and understand many more. She says "Yes, No, Ball, Baby, Mommy - which means I want something, Dadoo, Abi, Ju - juice, Uh-oh and What." She loves it when I sing this little song about a pet hippo and will sing "Oh yes" at just the right time. Leah loves to dance and clap to music, she just lifts herself up onto one knee and one foot and bounces along to the music. We are down to one nap a day from about 1:00 to 3:00 pm. She is getting much better as sleeping now that most of her teeth are through. She has 14 now and 2 lower eye teeth starting to work through. She can eat just about anything and has a particular talent for sniffing out Abi and Tal's candy stashes. She like to look at books and turn the pages but only for a minute. Mostly, Leah is a girl on the go and looking for adventure.