Reyes Family Time: Our baby (if you can call her that!) is 15 months old!

Our sweet girl is 15 months old today. It is hard to believe, as always, that 15 months have gone by. Miriam is really an amazing age right now, and we can't believe how quickly our baby (truthfully, our toddler now) is growing up!

First, her stats. At her 15 month well baby visit today, she measured 32.25" (90th percentile) and 22lbs, 13oz (40th percentile). She's long and lean, and is using those long legs and long arms to her advantage. She's never met a piece of furniture she didn't try to climb! ;)

It is hard to put into words how fun Miriam is right now. Don't get us wrong, she's always been fun, but she is SO full of personality these days, it just oozes out of her, and it is so fun to watch! She's quite a talker, and is constantly talking and babbling all day long. She knows about 15 words and is always using her words to communicate what she wants, especially by insistently signing "please" to ask for something she wants. She is always on the go, walking, running, climbing, etc. She loves to make a mess and dump her toys out, then put them back and repeat the process again. She recently started settling herself in our laps (so adorable!), bringing a book or a toy that she wants to read or play with us. She smiles and laughs a lot, and gets a lot of enjoyment out of climbing, playing, running.

Miriam is really starting to come out her shell of shyness, and her stranger anxiety is mostly gone. She loves to wave and say "hi" to people, and often walks to people at nearby tables or on the sidewalk and waves to them. She really likes to watch other kids, but is still a bit unsure about how to interact with them. She mostly plays alongside them, but doesn't quite know what to do if they hug her or grab her hand to try and play. She usually grabs her hand away and looks at us to make sure everything is still ok. :)

Last week, Miriam and I were home on Friday afternoon, and we were playing in her room. Miriam likes to play a game in her crib where she flops around and throws everything out of her crib...her blanket, her teddy, and her PJs. Then we put them back in the crib with her, and the game repeats. On Friday, she was a little bit tired and was lying down listening to her music, and I was putting clothes away in her closet. I heard her say "aw-duh" ("all done") and I turned around to go and get her. Normally when she says "all done", she's standing up in her crib with her arms raised, waiting to be picked up. This time, she was hanging OUTSIDE her crib, holding on to the edge of the crib with her hands. I did a double take at first...I couldn't believe what I was seeing! She'd climbed over the side of her crib and was hanging on the edge, just waiting for me to get her. Needless to say, I took her and everything else out of the crib, and lowered her mattress right then and there. It was so funny though, because I had no inkling (no strange noises, her "aw-duh" sounded normal) that she was anything but in her crib. Luckily she didn't fall or get hurt, but it was still a somewhat scary (although quite funny, my strong little girl) moment!

Miriam loves to be outside and on the go, so we often spend our weekends outside or at various playgrounds, museums and parks. She thinks it is funny to run away from us, or "tag" us and then wait for us to get her. And since she has learned to climb, she likes to stand on our baseboard heater, nose pressed to the living room window, watching anything that moves outside. As soon as she sees anything (birds, cats, the mailman, etc.), moving outside, which is rare because we live on a dead end street, she gets really excited and starts waving and babbling happily. Every once in a while, someone sees her and waves back, and she stays glued to the window until she can't see them anymore.

Miriam is so constantly on the go, we don't have very many great pictures of her from recent weeks. Here are some that give you a taste of what we do during the day, and the activities she enjoys.