Today is 15 months exactly for Ms. Z. As I was looking back over some of her photos, as I see other children at the park, it's ever more clear that my baby is so not a baby any more.
Here she is wearing her current favorite dress. Sometimes I forget what clothes are in her closet, and when I remember and pull them out for her, she gets so excited. Lately she's been very interested in dresses, flowers and butterflies. This little dress got a chance at glory for the last warm weekend I think we are going to have and Z was so happy to get the chance to wear it (she had been grabbing it's hanger from the closet door handle every morning for a week to convince us we needed to put it on her). Her opinions are getting so strong and so well defined and it's really delightful to see her figure out what she likes and doesn't like.
This has got to be one of my favorite pictures of her, ever and I am more than a little jealous that it was taken by John. He just found a new lens for the Canon XSI (it's a "prime" lens with a large aperture) and was playing around with it Thursday after we got back from the park. The full size image is gorgeous, just too large to upload to my website. This picture captures her thoughtful focusedness of late. When she gets interested in something, she will spend a lot of time trying to figure out how it works. And she is now really beginning to get some hair. She looks like she has her father's hairline.
Here's the smile that shows up now. It's a little more guarded than it used to be, but still very toothy (we are now up to 7 teeth with an 8th on the way) and sweet. She won't wear hats, but she doesn't mind having the hood on her sweatshirts pulled up. Note the butterflies! She will say something very close to butterfly (sounds like buh-fly) and she will select clothes with butterflies on them over almost anything else. I wish I could remember all the words that she knows. There are so many! Some Polish, most English. And she repeats sounds all the time -- reminding us that we have to be a bit more careful with what we say around her.
She loves animals and at this point knows no fear of them. Dogs, cats and pigeons are all interesting and she is getting better and better at petting our cats in a gentle way -- her fine motor skills are definitely getting better. She spots birds and airplanes that it takes John and I a while to find (I swear, she has the "DC10"* gene that all the men in my family seem to be homozygous for) and a perfect afternoon for Z is racing around the park climbing up anything that doesn't knock her down first. We refer to her as "Danger Baby" since she just doesn't let anything (even things that should) put her off going where she wants to go.
Happy 15 Month Birthday, Baby Girl. You just keep getting more wonderful as you get bigger!
* Some time ago, back when I was in graduate school, Science magazine created a humorous mock up of the Y chromosome. One of the genes they identified was the DC10 gene, which conferred the ability, nay forced the recipient, to look into the air any time an airplane passed overhead and identify the make and model. Almost all the men in my family seem tosuffer from carry this gene
Here she is wearing her current favorite dress. Sometimes I forget what clothes are in her closet, and when I remember and pull them out for her, she gets so excited. Lately she's been very interested in dresses, flowers and butterflies. This little dress got a chance at glory for the last warm weekend I think we are going to have and Z was so happy to get the chance to wear it (she had been grabbing it's hanger from the closet door handle every morning for a week to convince us we needed to put it on her). Her opinions are getting so strong and so well defined and it's really delightful to see her figure out what she likes and doesn't like.This has got to be one of my favorite pictures of her, ever and I am more than a little jealous that it was taken by John. He just found a new lens for the Canon XSI (it's a "prime" lens with a large aperture) and was playing around with it Thursday after we got back from the park. The full size image is gorgeous, just too large to upload to my website. This picture captures her thoughtful focusedness of late. When she gets interested in something, she will spend a lot of time trying to figure out how it works. And she is now really beginning to get some hair. She looks like she has her father's hairline. Here's the smile that shows up now. It's a little more guarded than it used to be, but still very toothy (we are now up to 7 teeth with an 8th on the way) and sweet. She won't wear hats, but she doesn't mind having the hood on her sweatshirts pulled up. Note the butterflies! She will say something very close to butterfly (sounds like buh-fly) and she will select clothes with butterflies on them over almost anything else. I wish I could remember all the words that she knows. There are so many! Some Polish, most English. And she repeats sounds all the time -- reminding us that we have to be a bit more careful with what we say around her. She loves animals and at this point knows no fear of them. Dogs, cats and pigeons are all interesting and she is getting better and better at petting our cats in a gentle way -- her fine motor skills are definitely getting better. She spots birds and airplanes that it takes John and I a while to find (I swear, she has the "DC10"* gene that all the men in my family seem to be homozygous for) and a perfect afternoon for Z is racing around the park climbing up anything that doesn't knock her down first. We refer to her as "Danger Baby" since she just doesn't let anything (even things that should) put her off going where she wants to go.
Happy 15 Month Birthday, Baby Girl. You just keep getting more wonderful as you get bigger!
* Some time ago, back when I was in graduate school, Science magazine created a humorous mock up of the Y chromosome. One of the genes they identified was the DC10 gene, which conferred the ability, nay forced the recipient, to look into the air any time an airplane passed overhead and identify the make and model. Almost all the men in my family seem to
I keep looking at my 15 month old and what surprises me most is the very strong will she has. You can't argue with a 15 month old toddler.
Happy 15 months for Z.
Happy 15 months, Z! NOW I finally know what ails my poor husband, the aerospace/aeronautical engineer. He is so obsessed with planes that he can barely hold a conversation that doesn't contain the phrase "I saw this plane today...". It's that pesky DC10 gene! None of the kids have tested positive yet, but my son is started to act in suspicious manner. ha
Happy 15 Months!
My husband is also a carrier of this gene.
Miss Z is so adorable! I love her little shoes! She looks very steady on her feet. Is she running too? We call A "Danger baby" too but I think the difference is that A has no idea what is dangerous. I can't put her in any dresses because she loves to crawl all over and just makes a mess of herself right now. It's amazing and sad to think that they move out of that infant/baby phase so quickly. Where has the time gone???
She is most definitely running, and running with the kind of abandon that leads to scraped knees. What's interesting is that when she is wearing a dress, she actually seems to try to keep it clean and neat. When she is wearing pants, she will be almost magnetically attracted to dirt!
It's so fascinating to watch personalities appear. I tried to let my girls choose their own clothes as soon as they could make their preferences known. It made for some interesting combinations but I figured it was only clothes and they were learning to make decisions.
Z is beyond adorable. It's such fun watching her develop and appreciating your enjoyment. And that sixth sense about skirts vs. pants? Perhaps logical, given exposed knees, but still... You are truly blessed.
Happy 15 months, Little Girl Z!
My husband suffers from that gene, too. I suppose he has an excuse; he was an aerospace engineer for 17 years and is also a pilot. On our wedding night, he was super excited because out hotel room was in the flight path of a nearby airport and he could watch the airplanes land from the balcony. Seriously.
I can completely believe that! My dad is an aero engineer (his vision wasn't good enough for pilot training via his college ROTC program, so that never happened, though I think he would have liked it to) and I grew up with the airplane viewing.
Your husband would have loved the room John and I had for our wedding night. We booked a room in a downtown Chicago hotel, forgetting that the Chicago Air & Water show was the same weekend. We woke up to the sound of the Blue Angels swooping past the hotel.
And on the other side of the family, my husbands parents literally live close to the end of the runway at Midway airport. My brother in law loves airplanes, too. Before they blocked off the view of the end of the runway (there was a fence there, but no shielding panels), he and I would go and watch the planes take off and he would tell me about them.
I see there has been lens acquisition.
he he he
You should print that Ms. Z pic out at 8 x 10 on the metallic paper at www.mpix.com. Guaranteed frameable.