Syliva at 17 months

My little girl’s 17-month birthday is today!  This morning, Andrew and Bryan went fishing at the lake (trying out their new Father’s Day fishing poles), and Sylvie and I played in the yard.  She is getting good at kicking a ball.  She runs up to it, gives it a kick while on the move, and keeps running after it.  Run, run run!  That little girl looks so cute as she dashes about after her brother!

A few weeks ago, Sylvia had a major change of heart about books.  She now loves them.  As Shell Sylverstein says,

Loved these things will all her soul, loved them more than shining diamonds, loved them more than glistenin’ gold.

When she wakes in the morning, she no longer says “oooshhh” (shoes) while pointing to her shelf of shoes.  Now she stumbles to stand, points at the books shelf, and while still bleary-eyed says, “oook” (books).  Many, many times a day, she picks up a book, comes to an adult, turns her self around, plops her little bottom into your lap, and hands you the book.  It’s so adorable!!  I know many babies (including my first baby) enjoy books from an early age, but for Sylvia this is a 180 in her attitude toward books.  From a very early age, she was not only not interested in books, she downright objected to their presence in her life.  About seven months ago, she turned a corner where she started to like books…but only one page per book.  So this whole new love of books is a most exciting change:)

In other news, she’s gaining coordination by leaps and bounds.  She’s walking down stairs sometimes.  When we were at the capitol building last week, she was having lots of fun walking down some shallow steps all by herself.  She uses a spoon really well (when she feels like it), and she’s quite interested in using non-sippy cups (just like her brother).

She’s imitating lots of sounds, and while she doesn’t have loads of clear words, she can make her point known using verbal signals.  Sylvia went to Donna’s house for daycare on Wednesday, and she waved goodbye to me.  She said, “Ahna” (Donna), and it sounds like she had a great time.

Sylvia and Andrew are going to be in Texas without me and Bryan for nine days later this month.  I bet she’ll seem so grown up when she comes back home!