17-Month Update

The tips of her molars came in.  It looked like a river was flowing from her mouth for a week or so, but other than that, we bypassed this milestone without too many hiccups.  We didn’t experience any night wakings or extra fussiness, but she did go through a few days of extra neediness.

She’s been learning her colors – I introduced color pencils and crayons along with a coloring book not too long ago, and now she drags that book with her everywhere.  She is also starting to recognize colors, specifically purple and blue.  She’s working on her numbers too.  She will wrap her mini hand around my pointer finger and guide my finger across the page as she tries to count (though not in numerical order).  She can say “two”, “twee”, and “six”.

She is super attached to her blue bear, her angel bear, and her Saranoni baby blanket.  She reminds me of Linus, clutching one of her bears in one arm and dragging her blankie in another.  God forbid something happens to any of these as they were gifts and won’t be easy to replace.

Hugging poohbear (upper-left); Feeding poohbear (upper-right); Using bluebear as a cushion (bottom-left); Holding hands with poohbear while she eats (bottom-right)

One thing we’ve started doing as a family is a nightly stroll before bed.  After dinner, we take Noelle outside for a short night’s stroll – both to digest and to help us unwind for the night.  It’s perfect to do this now that the sun is setting later and the air is warmer here in Socal.

Noelle has never been a super smiley baby, but lately it seems all she does is run and laugh and giggle.  She is such a goofball in the privacy of our home, and loves to mess around.  She is also seeking out her daddy more and more, and becoming a bit less of a mama’s girl (though I’m still her favorite… hehe).  She’s got her daddy wrapped around her little finger and he doesn’t mind at all.

However, with strangers it’s a whole other story.  I lied when I said she was kicking the stranger anxiety habit.  It’s still there, and stronger than ever.  She’s great with other babies, but very wary of adults – especially men.

She was having so much fun playing with her couch pillow fort, when all of a sudden she hears the door open and is on high alert (top), then she sees my husband’s best friends walk thru the door and burst into tears!

She brings a healthy chaos to our lives.  She is incredibly sweet and giving and warm.  She surprises us in the most unexpected ways.  Like today, I was laying there, looking up at her as she was figuring out how to squeeze my earplug into a tube.  It was the most fascinating thing, sitting there… looking into those deep, brown eyes and actually seeing her mind at work.  She teaches me to see life through the lens of a child.  I learn something everyday from a perspective I had long tucked away.

There are so many things we can’t wait to experience with our daughter as she grows.  Picnics at the park, swimming in the ocean, Disneyland, the San Diego Zoo, camping in Yosemite.  I can’t wait to show her the world and help her find her place in it.  I hope to nurture her into a gentle but confident, Godly woman in a society that makes it difficult for women to be strong and unapologetic and God-fearing.  I want her to be better than I could ever be.  I see now why parents end up living through their offspring, at the disdain of their children.  They do so with the best of intentions, wishing on their children the life they lived only in dreams.

I would never want to dictate her life, or make her choices for her.  However, I will guide her the best I can… and the only way I can do that is if I have the right guide first.  How do I parent with grace?  With truth?  I can only pray that God finds her and keeps her… that she follow His ways even when I fall short.  And I will (I do), fall short.

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