Addy turned 14 months old yesterday. She has left babyhood behind in a big way. I have to say this age is not my favorite but her cuteness and silliness wins me over every time.

Why isn’t this age my favorite? I thought you’d never ask! Let me tell you -

• The baby can’t talk but knows what she wants and expects it immediately. Fun. The few signs she knew she refuses to use becuase she thinks she can speak. She babbles and whines incessantly, all day long. She is making progress with her words, but not the progress SHE wants to make. Another 3 months and we should be in a better place.
• The baby is extremely dexterous and mobile and does not know her own limits. She can not be babyproofed. Incidentally? I never even HAD to babyproof for my boys. Everything is a challenge to her. This morning she figured out how to squeeze sideways through the banister to get up the stairs and around the baby gates. I am SURE she knows how to pry out those outlet protectors. Right now she has taken apart a bunch of legos and is using a screwdriver to try to figure out how to put them back together! Haha. She also runs like crazy now. And spins. And falls a LOT! And tries very very very hard to jump, unsuccessfully. Plus she climbs. On EVERYTHING but will only try to get off herself when she is in the mood and if you interrupt, you are in big trouble. The rest of the time she will sit and whine and freak out about not being able to get off herself until you take her down. That’s a fun game!
• She is very contrary which is cute and funny most of the time. Everything has to be on Her Terms, parenting/disciplining this age becomes very tricky (I should interject right here to say that punishment is not a part of my parenting repertoire - crazy, I know - but that means I have to be a little more creative with discipline). Distraction is a thing of the past. “Trading” is not gonna happen - she wants what she wants. And ‘no’ breaks her little baby heart. Unless she’s saying it of course. The worst area is food and drink - she wants what we adults have and we aren’t gonna share (we are talking Coca-cola, Vitamin water, food she can choke on) but no amount of unwavering firmness convinces her and her little heart is broken until we just move the drink out of sight. Drinking and eating (some things) in secret is annoying. But it won’t last much longer.



• Meals are sooo messy. Because although she’s perfected the fork, she has not yet perfected the spoon but no longer likes to be parent-fed. So anything messy like a casserole, a soup, applesauce, desserts - things you can’t eat with a fork, become extremely huge messes. This is probably no big deal to a lot of Moms but I hate the mealtime messes, and she won’t wear a bib (plus it really does not help - she likes to wipe her hands in her hair and face and neck).
• She doesn’t want us to leave. Ever. Both of us. I know that is good for attachment but it is impractical. And I’m not talking about leaving her with a babysitter - that seems ions away! I mean leaving her with the other parent! She wants us TOGETHER, period. That means several times a day, inevitably, we are breaking her little baby heart by going to get gas, groceries, etc. She can come and often does, but there are times when it is WAY easier to leave her at home. Like grocery shopping. Plus she also hates it when her brothers come to play with her and then leave (like to go upstairs!!). Really she wants the world to revolve around her and I don’t blame her



• She likes to ‘help’. But of course she is just shy of being able to *actually* help. She has the dexterity but not the direction-following desires I was building a wooden desk the other day and turned around to find that she put in a few cam bolts, a few wooden dowels and was working hard on a screw and screwdriver - all in their correct spots. Just out of order as to what was necessary to actually BUILD the desk. Helpful but not helpful. Or I put the ingredients into the kitchen aid, give her a spoon to help stir and she does….until she dips and sucks, dips and sucks. Not quite ‘helpful’. I give her her own little container with a little milk to ‘dip and suck’ and that is a great solution….until she decides to pour the entire thing into my kitchen aid (because she realizes this is what you do with containers full of liquids during cooking time), off-setting the recipe and ruining it. She likes to throw things away for us but this means one of two things: fishing NEW stuff out afterward (ew) or throwing away valuable and needed things (like the new pot-holder Noah spent all night weaving for the first time). Helpful but not quite helpful. Not yet.



• She’s a brute! A BRUTE! Anyone laying down on the floor screams “victim” in her eyes and she runs at them to body-slam them, pummel them, hit them over the head or stab them in the stomach with whatever toy she wields at the time….or her favorite - pinch them all up. Today she lifted her foot to stomp someone. You are probably thinking “obviously this is a girl who lives with many brothers” but, in fact, my boys aren’t ANYTHING like this and weren’t even like this as toddlers. The problem is that a short bit ago she was being wild and did something like this and her very overly loving brothers elicited such a positive response and the light bulb went off. Every time she attacks them, they giggle with joy. BOYS!!! So now I’m gonna have one tough cookie on my hands, no boy will be able to mess with her! But taming it will probably take the better part of the next year.
• And then there is the issue of the cats and her unrelenting love for them. I watch her carefully but I like to assume that if the cats did not want her messing with them they might, say, RUN AWAY! Not so with my lazy cats. They would sooner tolerate abuse than actually get up and move. So I have to watch her all the time or she will pick them up, try to carry them (at half her body weight!), pinch off the newly-shaven newly-altered kitty’s nipples (I do not jest) or “explore” their ears, eyes, paws, tail, etc. And then there is the aforementioned body-slamming. It takes due diligence.

So bottom line is that she is sooo cute, super smart, very inquisitive, extremely headstrong and all of those things will be SUPER traits when she is older and into adulthood. But they are also the very same traits that make parenting her as a 14 month old an exhausting, intense job for the time being. If she were my first baby I’d probably be beating my head against the wall. Instead we spend most of the time watching in amazement, giggling and knowing it will pass. Ah, the gift of experience!

This entry was posted on Friday, June 29th, 2007 at 10:38 am and is filed under Milestones, Parenting. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.