16 months old

Well my little Peanut is 16 months old today and has an attitude far beyond this age. She is so spunky and so silly and overall a joy yet if she doesn't get her way wow just wow.

Take church this weekend. She had napped well that day, ate a snack so we figured all would be well minus the fact that she is still working on her molars and the 4 other teeth coming in of course. It was Palm Sunday. Kiya immediately latched on to a palm frond and would not let go. We have learned to pick our battles with her and given our location this wasn't a battle we were going to pick.

Mass starts off well, Kiya is maintaining her death grip on the palm frond and being quiet. YEAH! Well, she starts to wave the frond around and hits the man in front of us in the back of the head. He was nice about it but we felt terrible. Kiya and Dave took a break to walk around after this.

Then it is time for communion, we are standing in line and as we are walking past the baptismal fountain, Kiya calls out "ball" as it is round. She must have then noticed that there was water and immediately started pointing and screaming the farther away we got. The kid loves water. Needless to say after this and a few other incidents, we left early.

But she is just as silly as she is spunky. Take her new found love of trying to get away from Mommy and Daddy. She can scoot pretty fast especially on the kitchen floor, crawling she is slower at but either way she has a new love for trying to avoid us, especially at bedtime. She will be in the kitchen and peek around the center island and if we make eye contact she just giggles and keeps on going. Where to? The bathroom down the hall of course. The place mommy and daddy don't want her to be. We keep the door closed now but she still tries to head on over there.

She is at such a great age right now. Learning new things to do, talking and her personality is really starting to shine. I love watching her flourish and grow and test her limits. She is one smart cookie and I am loving it even though she keeps me on my toes.

So dearest Kiya,

Know that no matter what, I will always love you. You can scream and kick in church, you can try avoiding your bedtime, you can throw you sippy cup at the dogs and it won't change how I feel about you. You are the light of my life and while I may be upset with you about your behavior, know that it is your behavior and not you. You will always be my little peanut and I love watching you learn and discover new things. I especially love hearing your sweet sweet voice and your "dada" song. So to you my daughter I say go and explore and learn and discover, just stay out of the dog's water dish. :)