You have started doing your little wave – where you hold your hand up about shoulder height and then open and close your hand several times – all the time. Your dad and I joke that it’s the sort of wave, relaxed and almost as an afterthought, that would be accompanied by the words ‘buh-bye’ if you could talk.

Oftentimes you will do this gesture to say goodbye, when you hear the door shut or when I say goodbye to your father. But in the last day or two you’re doing it at random times, sitting in your highchair or while we’re rocking, for example. I know you’re trying to communicate something, but I haven’t quite figured it out yet. I’ve still been trying to teach you the signs for ‘more’ and ‘all done’, but you’ve never signed those back. Maybe you’re using this wave as some sort of sign; I just have to determine for what.

Last year your nana bought you a little St. Patrick’s Day dress for the holiday. Your dad dressed you that day and accidentally put it on you backward. A couple weeks ago I was cleaning out your dresser and pulling out clothes that you’d outgrown. I stumbled on this dress and held it up to you; it looked like it would fit. It was size 0-3 months, a testament to how tiny you are that it still fits you. But you wore it today, now over jeans since it isn’t long enough to be a dress, but it fit you fine. And you were pretty cute in it, just like you were last year.

Happy St. Patty’s Day

Your dad and I had a ski day today and nana and papa watched you. They were excited to take you to the museum where you enjoyed exploring and especially loved the bear cave. We met you all after skiing for happy hour in Frisco. I sure missed you today!

We decided to stop in Silverthorne for some lunch before heading to Breckenridge. Since you’d been cooped up in the car I knew you’d be too antsy to go straight to lunch, so we looked around and found an amazing playground in Silverthorne. The ground was all covered in snow but the play structure had melted off, so you were able to walk around on it and explore. We had so much fun on it and I’m excited to go back this summer when the snow will be gone and you can explore more freely.

Walking over the river to the playground in Silverthorne

Strider bikes – little toddler bikes without pedals – seem to be all the rage in Boulder. They’re supposed to be great for teaching balance before introducing you to a normal bike. We’ve been talking about getting you one for a while, and a couple of weeks ago they were on sale so we ordered you one. We felt obligated to get a more gender-neutral color like yellow or red, but the bright pink one was too cute to resist. The bike arrived today and we’re so excited to get you on it. It says we can start you riding it at 18 months. First we need to get a helmet!

And after you perfect the Strider you have another bike waiting for you, a little red bike given to you today by our neighbors. Their son, Jake has ridden it for years, but now at age five he has outgrown it. It’s too funny that you got two bikes today!

I was just recently thinking how happy I am that you’re stably walking now. It seems as though you bump and bonk yourself much less frequently than you have been over these last few months. From the moment you could stand you’ve been trying to stand AND move. And that led to lots of falls. I’ve been so happy that you’re so much more stable and the falls seem to be few and far between.

Until this evening when I realized that now that you’ve perfected walking you have moved on to climbing. I’ve seen you climb onto my nursing stool and then onto the rocking chair, but that’s pretty novice climbing. But this evening you mounted three routes that left me fearing for this next stage and had me Google-ing ‘infant helmets’ by nights end. First, you climbed up onto your wagon. It was next to the dining room table and chairs, so you then grabbed onto a chair, pulled yourself up a little bit, and then pulled yourself up on the table! After I removed you from the table and destroyed the wagon obstacle course you next moved onto the stools, where you reached up on your tip toes and grabbed the bar at the bottom of the backrest then pulled yourself up and attempted to get your feet on the bottom rung of the stool. I watched all of this in amazement but at this point finally snapped out of my trance and pulled you off the stool! I am amazed it didn’t fall over.

Next we were in your bedroom and I was cleaning up, and I looked and you were literally hanging on the top drawer of your dresser, which hadn’t been fully closes. Again, tragedy averted when the drawer didn’t come crashing out on you. This is craziness. Literally, craziness. I have no idea how to childproof the house against these sorts of activities. Tonight I wrote a note for the nanny in the ‘nanny notebook’ that read ‘Emma is climbing up on everything. Keep a CLOSE EYE ON HER AT ALL TIMES!!!!!’. Other than that, and the baby helmet, I don’t know what to do.

Today the sun came out and it was a beautiful day so we went for a long walk. You happily looked around, though at one point I flipped up the shade to adjust your hat and you were blinded by the sun, and made an unhappy squinting face at the sun. I’m not sure how we’re ever going to convince you to wear your sunglasses, but today would’ve been a great day for them. When we got home I suggested we play in the snow in the backyard. You had on a snowsuit that, unfortunately, is not meant for walking in; it doesn’t have any holes for your feet to protrude from. But, you wanted to walk. You kept trying to stand up and walk and kept falling over. I’d untucked your hands from the snowsuit so you could eat snacks during our walk, and your naked hands kept reaching for the snow. Your curiosity for the glistening white snow won over the cold sensation spreading over your hands. You and your dad built a snowman, and I tried to get a picture of you with ’13 months’ written in the snow (since I neglected taking one on your 13 month birthday).

Your dad and I (mostly your dad) are trying to organize the garage and put things we don’t use under the house. Today he was working on the crawl space and I was working on organizing your clothes that you’ve outgrown into bins. I had two bins and was trying to sort the clothes by size. You were on the floor verifying that everything I put into the bins really belonged there. You’d take out items as I’d put them in. Some you’d inspect and put back in, some you’d throw to the floor, and some you’d walk around with. This made for a slow process. But we had fun.

I was sorting through clothes sized 0-6 months. It was fun going through them and reminiscing how little you used to be. But some items looked pretty big, and so we also played dress-up. I tried items on you to see if they fit, and found quite a few that still fit you! Through this process you ended up in a goofy outfit of sweatpants and a dress, which I was trying on you when you walked off to find something else to do.

I heard you in the corner and went to see what you were doing, and you’d found two boards your dad had laid down for his work in the crawlspace. They weren’t exactly stacked perfectly on top of each other and so you were able to sort of bounce on top of the highest one. You were having so much fun in your goofy little outfit; you’re such a great helper, both as a clothes organizer and a builder.

Of course, tonight after the bins have been stored under the house, I spotted a little pink sandal peeking out from under the couch and found a pair of socks under the table. These were items for the 0-3 month bin that you apparently weren’t ready to see packed away yet!

You’ve started to bend over and put your head on the floor, resting there for a bit. It looks like you’re pondering whether you should fully commit and throw yourself over into a summersault. So, a couple of times I’ve helped you over, picking up your feet and gently flipping you over with a joyous ‘wheeeee’ sound. Today at Gym Jam I spotted a corner of mats and thought it’d be a good place for more summersaults. You had a great time. You haven’t yet tried one on your own but you often stick your head down and wait for me to flip you over.

This evening we went out for a nice dinner with nana and papa to the Chop House. At the start of the meal we were talking about how you’re so active at mealtime (and all the time) that you just don’t want to seem to sit still long enough to eat. More often than not you put up a fuss when we put you in your highchair. Your papa was saying that we just need to keep working with you and eventually you’ll understand that when we put you in your highchair it means it’s time to eat. We told him it’s not quite that easy.

Well, before the meal I walked around outside a bit with you. Then as we were having drinks and appetizers you took turns on each of our laps as we tried to keep you happy and delay what we thought was your inevitable unhappiness at being put in the highchair. Finally when our meals came we put you into your highchair and each gave you little bites of our meals. And you sat and ate and did wonderfully. It was so great to eat a nice meal out with you and to have you sit there and eat with us; often one of us has to accompany you on walks around the restaurant while the other eats. We think you must’ve been listening to us talk and wanted to show everyone how good of an eater you can be.