eighteen

It’s been a hot minute since I’ve done a post on Olivia. Lo and behold, she turned 18 months on Sunday. Yes, seriously. EIGHT.TEEN.MONTHS.

I will let you digest that for a moment.

Done?

She has an opinion on everything. And smirks frequently. Like, SMIRKS. Little baby corners of her mouth twitch upward imperceptibly and she squints slightly. Then moves about her business. Her very important toddler business.

She can sign dog, fish, banana, diaper, eat, more, want. She will often use them interchangeably just to make sure you’re paying attention.

She RUNS everywhere and is afraid of NOTHING…including, but not limited to, her own well-being. The child has no sense of self-preservation and will pitch herself off anything no matter the height. I must be part cat with the number of lives I’ve lost snatching her from busting her face on the floor or edge of something.

It’s as precious as it sounds.

She loves music. LOVES music. Especially music on TV. She even understands when a song ends because she’ll grin really huge and look at me and clap. She appreciates performance and demonstrates thusly. That’s my girl.

She is still chubby though a lot of it is slowly lengthening into toddlerhood. At 18 months, she wears a combination of 2T and 3T clothing. Size 6 shoes. So there’s that happy wardrobe change.

Her imagination is beginning to blossom. The other day, she crawled around on the floor barking then stood up and patted her belly, which is her sign for dog. This cracked her up immensely so she repeated it, totally oblivious to me watching.

She’s a such a treasure. My little angel. I could sit and watch her read for hours. I could watch her delight in a Disney song, clapping excitedly and twirling and dancing, forever. She constantly reminds me to find the happy in everything, no matter how innocuous.

We’ll pretend I was thinking something deep and profound there and not mentally calculating how much laundry I have to do.