First Entry

My daughter is 17 months old. She is learning and growing so quickly, it literally feels like time is flying. She is learning new things every day. Lately it is not unusual for her to hear a sound or word and be able to repeat it back immediately. She has a rather large vocabulary for her age, some of her words are: kitty, puppy, okay, hi, bye-bye, please, cheese, blankie, keys, ball, swing and I know I'm forgetting some.

She also knows lots of animal noises: sheep, cow, bird, crow, kitty, puppy, horse, lion and monkey. Some body parts she can identify: belly, bellybutton, head, nose, ears, eyes, mouth, fingers/hand, feet, teeth and tongue. She is very smart!

I stay home with her during the day. When she was born I was planning on going back to work. However, after she was here, I knew I wouldn't be able to leave her. I didn't want to miss all her milestones so I quit my job. Things haven't been easy. My husband was unemployed for 6mos this year so money was very tight. Currently he is back to work, but who knows for how long. We take things month by month, sometimes day by day, but we get by. I'm so thankful to be able to stay home with my baby.

We have a few things we do during the days to keep us occupied. During the summer we were outside a lot. Charla loves being outside. We would go for walks, swing in the swing, go to the park and play in the sandbox. Lately the weather has been as nice so we've started playing inside a bit more. Inside she likes to color, squish play dough, play with her farm/animals and so much more. She's a happy child and fairly easy to keep occupied. We also go to playgroups during the week which she really enjoys.

This evening we were going for a walk outside. It was a nice night out, we haven't had a nice evening in about a week so we took advantage of it. While we were out, a flock of geese flew overhead. Charla loves birds and animals so of course this caught her attention. She looked up at the sky and said "geese". She then watched them until they disappeared. Things like this are what I want to remember; the wide-eyed wonderment of a toddler is beautiful. They are so eager to learn and aren't in a rush.

My husband says it must be nice to not have any concept of time. To be able to wonder about and study every tree, leaf or anthill to your hearts content. I definitely believe that this is one of the joys of childhood.