Lorelai at 17 Months

Sweet Lor-e-lai.... this happy, energetic, opinionated, silly, smart, loveable child is still holding steady at 19-20 pounds and roughly 31 inches tall. Her blonde hairs are growing a bit longer and curly in back. She looooves to go outside. Lorelai and I have enjoyed sledding down the hill from our house to the park and playing on the equipment and swining on the swings while we still have this abundance of snow. The snow has slowly been melting and should be gone as the week moves along and warms up to nearly 60 degrees! We are ready! This evening, Kurt took Ben and Abby to the bike shop to replace one of Abby's tires and Lorelai was in tears witnessing her siblings go outside and she could not go with! Lorelai loves to go for rides in the wagon, sit upon Abby's bike and try to pedal, push the toy lawn mower and generally hobble around outside in her winter gear. Indoors, Abby loves to dance and climb EVERYTHING. She is highly entertained when one of her siblings offers her food or tries to feed her. This evening, Kurt and I found Abby and Lorelai up on the loveseat snuggled next to each other, each reading their own book. Healthwise, Lorelai thankfully has been well. Through the entire winter, she maybe had one runny nose cold and a stomach bug that she recovered from in about 24 hours (back in December), and that's it. Lorelai LOVES to nurse. She does not typically have a huge appetite. Soometimes she is picky, but not consistently about the same things. Her favorites as of late are nut butter, kale/berry/banana smoothies, and cheese. Still no gluten and limited dairy (to yogurt and hard cheeses). She has eight teeth. Lorelai has been much more complaint and more easily hkept occupied without getting restless through church service. It has probably been at least a month since we have had to spend time behind the doors to the sanctuary due to her noise level or restlessness. Lorelai likes to draw, make a mess and generally get involved in everyone's (particularly Ben and Abby) business. She has made a few calls before I have stopped her (by calling numbers in the caller ID or redial). Lorelai generally sleeps through the night 10 hours, will sleep another hour or two after I feed her and takes one nap a day. We occasionally give her two naps when our schedule necessitates it- since I need to pick up Abby at 11:30 AM on Tuesdays and Thursdays from preschool and Lorelai seems to most desire her nap around 11 AM, I will either try and hold her off, or lay her down early (around 10 AM) and wake her to pick Abby up...in which case she may require a snooze around 2:30 or 3 PM as well. She is very affectionate, giving unsolicited hugs and kisses....such sweet kisses!! Lorelai's vocabulary is lingering around 20 words yet, but her word recognition is sailing along (she understands what words mean...ie, when looking at a scene in a book- Where is the lamp? Where is the rhino? Etc.) She loves books. She has done a number on them....