Violet

Violet turned 15 months old at the end of April, and I intended to write a post to commemorate that milestone, but it took me three weeks to do so! (And now another week to actually finish it, since Violet will now be 16 months old on Friday. How life is flying by!)

Even though my four children are each only about two years apart, I tend to forgot much about certain stages of their development until I experience it again with the next child. In Violet's case, however, she has been my earliest walker, runner, and climber, so at times, I feel like I am starting all over again with this parent stuff. The child is all over the place, but with almost no common sense (or fear)! Jamie and Simon were both around 15-16 months when they started to take steps and were fairly cautious, and Clare was almost 2 1/2 years old (and extremely cautious). So to see this little scrap of a girl literally running around still amazes me. She looks too tiny to be doing that! And not only running around, but having definite ideas of what she wants to do with her time. Her current favorite pastime is to push the baby doll stroller around (usually with a baby doll in it, but she does not mind if the seat is empty). What she insists on is having some sort of "purse" dangling off her arm while she does so. The purse can range from anything as random as a stuffed animal monkey purse to one of my red Target reusable shopping bags. If that purse falls off her arm, watch out - she is one ticked little girl!

While Violet has been the most advanced of my children when it comes to gross motor skills, she is not a talker like Jamie and Simon were (and still are!). Jamie had about a dozen words at a year old, and I vividly remember at his 18-month appointment, the pediatrician asked me how many words he had. I answered that I stopped writing them down when we reached 100 words, so I wasn't sure. The pediatrician laughed and said that he typically looked for between 12 and 30, so Jamie was doing just fine! Jamie being my first, I had no idea how verbally-advanced he was. Violet has no actual words yet, but she is a babbler, a shrieker, a giggler, and clearly understands everything we say to her (definitely not a quiet child!). She is still very attached to me, but has quite the silly personality once she warms up to other people. Violet is at a delightful age, and we all love watching this little spunky person doing her thing!