Fifteen months

It's been a while since I wrote a monthly round-up of Laurel's developments. In fact, I think I haven't done it since she was 11 months old!

So now, on her 15-month birthday, let me list a few of her recent accomplishments.

* The question on everyone's mind: no, she doesn't walk yet! (As I noted previously, however, she loves to climb and has her own method of crawling.)

* Over the last few days she has finally been practicing her standing skills. Several times today she stood for about ten seconds at a time, although strangely she seems to hate it! The child is fearless when it comes to climbing onto the toilet lid in order to flush it, but she seems nervous about standing on her own two feet. The only way she will even attempt standing alone is if I position her feet and carefully release both her hands. Usually she complains and sinks immediately to the ground.

* She loves to play with balls, and will spend many minutes rolling or even bouncing a ball back and forth with me. (In this photo you see her posing with a ball I bought her for Easter.) She also loves dogs, trucks, dolls, babies, big kids, swinging, sliding, riding on wheeled toys (I just bought her a tricycle), digging in the sand, music, cheese, and anything sweet. She loves being bounced on my knees while I sing nursery rhymes, especially the ones that involve falling off.

* She is beginning to play pretend games; recently I mentioned I saw her pretending to write. Today she sat at our child-sized table and pretended to drink from a sealed container of Play-Doh, and it was clear she was pretending to drink from a cup. (By the way, she is absolutely obsessed with drinking from a cup. I wonder what this will do for her continued success as a breast-fed baby.) She also pushes toy vehicles and holds the phone to her ear.

* She enjoys being around people. We had a big Easter party at my parents' house, and she didn't mind the crowd at all; she favored many of our relatives with the coy smile you see in this photo. This flirtatiousness is a new development for her. She still likes me best, I think, but she is really excited to see her father when he comes home from work, and she relished the company of her Opa and Oma (my parents).

* She is learning new words every day. Not to speak (although I think she is beginning to learn to say "owl" and "up"), but to understand. Perhaps more than that, she is learning how to make us understand that she understands. Isaac figured out very early how to communicate his own understanding, either through pointing or rudimentary language, but Laurel has been more self-contained. So I think it is very exciting -- for both of us! -- for her to reach out. (For instance, she understands the word "light," so she points at lights every chance she gets so we will notice and say, "Yes, that's the light!" Then she grins with satisfaction. She does similar things with "head" and "dog," among other words.)

* She still likes to play alone for long stretches of time, but she also enjoys being able to influence other people. One of her new favorite things is to bring me a book. When I begin to read it, she listens for a few moments, then closes the book and chooses another one.

* In related news, she is beginning to whine and fuss when she doesn't get what she wants: if she sees a cup, if we carry her past a toy, if she notices someone else eating something desirable. And she is beginning to tattle on her brother! Isaac likes to hug Laurel more vigorously than she enjoys (partly because he is physically affectionate, partly because he enjoys asserting his dominance), and also likes to stop her when she begins to crawl into a forbidden area. For months now she has yowled when he does this, but now she looks around for me and then yowls!