Stellyn's 13 + 14 Month Milestone Minutes

A Few New Words/Sounds:

Apple, cookie, cracker, paci ("pabble"), puppy ("pubble"), potty ("pobbi"), poop poop, water ("wa wa"), duck, truck, out, up, open, Aston ("Ashdi"), quack quack, roar, hat, hot, more ("mo"), airplane ("abbus"), trash ("tash"), bye, Hot Dog (sings the Mickey Mouse Clubhouse "Hot Dog" song), Minnie Mouse("mi mou"), thank you ("tank ooou") ...Mei repeats lots of things we say too but these are many of the words she says without prompting...

Notables:

• Mei stopped breastfeeding at 13 months. I was ready because she was ready. You may remember that she wanted to wean at 9 months but I couldn't let go. I was doing anything in my power to keep her nursing for that extra 4 months. It was just time. Sad but true. Aston would have nursed until he was 3 if I let him but at 15 months, when I was 3 months pregnant with Stell, my milk supply left me. With Stell, she didn't even notice that I stopped feeding her. With Aston, Jeff had to go get him out of bed and feed him breakfast right away before he saw me in the mornings otherwise he would be all bent out of shape...
• She loves to crawl upstairs and knock on her brother's door chanting "Ashdi", "Ashdi"...she misses him and wants him to come out to play when he's sleeping
• Sometimes if he's sleeping she will go get his monitor and say his name over and over as if he can hear her
• Stell eats way more than her brother...usually 3x as much and more than I do on certain occasions. It's amazing to watch and she always leaves you wondering where it all goes?
• Stelly Belly can't seem to kick the food throwing habit. She throws food whether she wants it or not...it baffles me...
• She insists on trying to use a spoon and fork. She does quite well and never gets frustrated...she just keeps at it.
• She now says "Mama" and "Daddi" in the real context.
• Meips has an obsession with shoes (ours, Aston's and her own)...as well as my clothes....and jewelry...she's a true girl and we love it.
• She likes her baby dolls ok but her favorite play time activities are playing cars with her brother, moving furniture, climbing over, behind and through the furniture, taking things in and out of buckets/baskets, trying on my clothes/shoes and getting into the pantry.
• Mei is happiest when she has a snack in each hand...she walks around all day with a pretzel in one hand and an apple slice in the other (or similar:)...when in doubt, hand her food
• Mama Kathryn gave Mei some plastic food to go in the grocery cart that Mama Anne got for her for her birthday. Mei immediately went to chew on the stuff like it was real food. Aston told her to "pretend Meipsiops...just pretend..." and he proceeded to show her how. So now she "pretend" eats everything! As soon as she puts something close to her mouth...like a rock from outside...we say "just pretend Monkey" and she does the cute little mouth open and close thing with with forbidden item as close to her lips as she can get it:)
• If there's a fly in the house (and there usually is:)), Exterminator Stelly will chase it down swatting at it with an open hand...one time she grabbed a black spatula from the dish washer and started swinging...I guess because it resembled our fly swatter:) When she finally nailed one it freaked her out because it was crawling slowly towards her but not flying away like the reaction she expected...
• Her latest nicknames mostly given to her by Aston are Meipsiops, Meipsioh-z, Mumpz, Mumpzi, Monkey or Monkey Moopz...:)
• Says "poop poop" before and after she poop poops:)...
• Stell is loved like crazy at Childwatch (YMCA). Her teacher Ms. Jean can't get over how easy she is...they say she's the sweetest they have:) I hope she maintains this "stellar" student stigma in September when she starts real preschool...or through college for that matter:)

Meips makes this "cold face" and clenched fists just like her brother did at this age...it's just something she started doing without any prompting from her "Ge Ge" (big brother in Chinese)...she makes this face when she tries to open something that is hard to open too...

This was a series of shots from when we were in the mountains a couple weeks ago...at a Japanese restaurant...it's a bunch of poor quality photos masked by heavy post processing but it's the perfect portrayal of my 13 month old baby...sweetness all over the place...especially when food is lurking:)...

Buggy you are getting so big...Daddy and I want to snatch you out of your crib every night for snuggles so we can get it while we can...