It’s amazing that the time is going so fast. She’s talking. She constantly says “hi” and waves. The sign for “up” is her favorite, of course. She occasionally will say “all done” and “yay” and she still calls me da da. I keep telling her I’m the other one and she doesn’t believe me. Rarely she will will sign potty or milk but mostly she just slams her face into my chest. If she wants something and we don’t hand it to her she has a tea kettle piercing shriek to announce to the world that we suck. We get to have another girl with Opinions. My ear drums aren’t thrilled but overall I’m telling myself that I want opinionated children because they will be more likely to be successful adults. Right?

As of yesterday she can hold on to a grown ups hands and walk all the way across the room. Before yesterday she would only take a couple of steps before sitting down and crawling because it is faster. She is very concerned with getting there faster. She loves Shanna but her affection is shown with slapping and hair pulling so I try to keep them physically separated most of the time. Shanna really likes to manhandle Calli so I play referee constantly. As I write this she is cruising around the chair I’m sitting on. And yelling at me because I’m not on the floor chasing her.

Calli is still nursing, as I grit my teeth. I’m not sure how long I will make it through. At this point I am praying I make it to a year before I lose my mind and run away from home. I am so done nursing. I really wish I would be able to make it to two, but I’m not sure I have it in me to do another 14 months of this. She’s not polite about nursing. She yanks, twists, hits, kicks, pinches, and scratches. Not to mention that she is physically incapable of being still for more than 1.2 seconds. This kid has energy. Another thing that I am telling myself I will appreciate in the long run even if it is hard right this minute.

She has been teething for a long time. The corner of a tooth will pop out then retract and not come back for another week before it pops out and … retracts. This has got to suck. She still doesn’t have one fully through and I have to say I’m thrilled. I think this one will bite more. Ugh.

She is fairly good natured all things considered. She really loves to play peek a boo. If you say “I’m gonna get you” she starts shrieking with joy and crawling away before she stops and checks to make sure you are chasing her. Then she keeps going. It’s lovely. She is very cuddly in a painful way. She likes to sit up and then dive bomb my chest (with or without exposed breast) over and over again. She giggles the whole time. She loves to lie next to me and burrow into my arm pit. She very much likes me more than other people, but she really likes people. She’s not a mama’s-girl and for this I thank God. She gets along with Noah really well and she is good at letting him comfort her.

She is not a fan of being carried in any baby carrier. Or stroller. She likes the wagon because there is normally a big kid in it with her and food and toys. She wants to be down crawling. No matter where we are or what we are doing she will scream and whack me in the back/head telling me to let her down. It’s festive.

This all sounds bitchy, but she is a really sweet baby. She smiles all the time. She’s just much more physically aggressive than I remember Shanna being. She has places to go and things to do and she’s bloody well going to go do them no matter who is in her way. Once she’s an adult I am going to be so happy she is like this! It’s going to be a festive childhood though. 🙂

I’m not taking enough pictures of her because I am lame about pictures. It’s dramatic how much smaller she is than Shanna at the same age. She’s got a little bit of chunk on her thighs, but just enough that she is capable of growing. She never does the rolls of fat thing. She has a little bit of jowls right now because she is closing in on a growth spurt but she actually has a rather narrow face.

She *loves* food. She is often really into meat. That’s interesting. She likes bread, but she gets uhm, backed up. I have learned that she has to have 2-3 prunes every day or she just can’t poop. That seems so very odd to me because my plumbing doesn’t work that way. (For the record, she does eat a lot of vegetable/fruit in addition to the bread and meat, but she’s less enthusiastic.) She can’t have dairy *at all* or she gets an unpleasant reaction. I’ll stop there because most people don’t want to hear it. 😛 I’m hoping that she grows out of that. Right now my plan a is to introduce goat dairy products at a year and pray. So far I am still sticking to my fascist regime of no sugar/processed foods (like potato chips/juice/soda) until a year. Only a few people have looked at me funny this time. 🙂

She takes two naps a day, the first around 9am and the second starting some time between 12 and 1:30. The first nap is 30-45 minutes and the second is usually 2+ hours. Night time sleep is rougher. She often won’t go to sleep with me. She wants to play. Often we have to let her fuss herself to sleep alone or she won’t sleep all.night.long. Of course people on the internet tell me I am causing brain damage and I am an abusive parent so I have a lot of guilt. But neither of us sleeping = big problems. When we get home I am going to get a mattress for the bottom of the bunk bed (it’s the floor) and start trying that. We’ll see how it goes. I feel awful leaving her in a baby jail to cry.

So far she seems to be growing happily and thriving, so for all of my angst I don’t think I have permanently fucked her up yet.