17 months!

17 months has been the month of the "Boom Truck"! Known to most people as a common garbage truck, these trash-disposing vehicles have become the highlight of Callie's week. We spend at least part of every day running to the window, looking for the Boom Truck whose "distinctive" diesel sound can easily be confused with the common diesel engine-thus resulting in heartrending disappointment 6 out of 7 days a week! Dave built her a garbage truck out of Legos to pacify her on non-garbage pick-up days :-). The "Boom Truck" was dubbed when Callie began describing to us, with sound effects and hand gestures how it picks the garbage can up in the air and then goes "boom" when it drops the garbage inside. She is pretty impressed with big trucks of any kind and "truck" is a regularly used word in her vocabulary. After several days of Callie being very excited about trucks, Dave asked her, "Callie, did you know Daddy has a truck?" She looked at him very confused and then said "no" while shaking her head. Dave was then convinced that he needed a bigger truck, as his daughter doesn't even recognize his little white truck as a truck! I quickly crushed his growing dream of a shiny, new Toyota Tacoma by reminding him that Callie wasn't likely to consider that a truck either, as she would really like her daddy to drive a garbage truck :-). So, if he has a drastic career change in the future, you will know the reason!

Our girl is not all tomboy, though. Yesterday, she rediscovered the baby doll my sister had given her for Christmas. It was time for her nap and I told her I was getting her bottle. She quickly ran around and gathered up her "guys"-her bunny and monkey stuffed animals that she sleeps with. Then she spotted baby and emphatically announced "AND Baby!" She has been insistent on sleeping with baby ever since. She is also quite good with her little kitchen, especially enjoying cooking apples in her microwave.

My parents bought the grand kids the "Baby Can Read" videos last year. Callie has watched one of them nearly every day since. Last week when the words "cat" and "teeth" came up on the screen, before the video said the word or showed the picture, Callie read the words out loud! It's fun to see her recognition. She also learned to count to 3 this month while we ran through the sprinklers. She will raise her arms up and bring them down with each number, enunciating as best as she can. It's pretty adorable. It's been very helpful for meal time, as I can say eat 3 more bites and then you can go play. (1/2 of our bites are airplanes now and 1/2 are "boom trucks" that go "boom" in her mouth!) Now we are trying to get her to understand that there are numbers after 3!

We visited my sister's family last weekend. Callie adores her cousins! It's so fun to watch them play together and see Sophie and A.J. teach Callie how to do new things. We are looking forward to a family vacation in Eagle Crest at the end of this month.

I haven't weighed Callie lately, but we will have her 18 month checkup next month. I'm interested to see where she is on the growth charts now. While she's looking a lot older and seems to have grown taller, she's definitely still petite. She is solidly in size 4 shoes and 18 month clothes (the bigger of the 18 month sizes now.) She's gotten better about eating more solids. She loves barbecued steak and has successfully eaten some homemade meals in a puree form. I would love to get her completely off the baby food soon, as it's a huge expense, but it's still the easiest thing to get down her when she's having a blood sugar meltdown and refusing to eat. She's still taking 2 naps most days 10:15-noonish and 3:30-4ish-5:15ish. Sometimes the second one is just a rest time. She goes to bed at 8:30 and wakes up around 7, but we get her up at 7:30 so she has time to wake up without being cranky (and we do, too!).

She is still quite the little daredevil-loves to climb, jump, stomp, dance and run everywhere! Her favorite thing is to bounce-pronounced "bous" on Mommy and Daddy's bed (when we are each on one side blocking any fall routes) because our dresser mirror is positioned at the perfect height for her to see herself while she does! She loves going to the park and is especially enthralled with swings right now! We had quite the scare on the church playground this past week when she was headed up to go on the slide. She's already done it 5 or 6 times so Mommy and Daddy were on the ground near one of the openings. She slipped as she was going up the stairs and fell out of an opening we weren't blocking! It was completely terrifying as she landed on her head and was screaming for several minutes. We credit God with a miracle as she only had surface scratches on her face and a swollen lip! We have all relived it several times and are so thankful for our Lord's protection! Sometimes, she seems like such a big girl, we forget she's still just 1. I think it was a good reminder for all of us.