Sit Down Child!

"Sit down child" - I believe I say that more than anything to my now 16 month old child.   Baby J loves to stand up in chairs and can get out of most every belt.   She's a sneaky one and so I find myself always saying Sit down.  
Baby J and I have had an extremely busy couple of weeks.   We moved and have been in our new place for about 2 weeks.   It's a single floor duplex with plenty of room.  While not totally finished I really like it and Baby J is adjusting well to it.  She loves all the space she now has and will go all over the house on her own.  Someday we will be unpacked.  It also came with a stray kitten that comes around alot.  It's probably just a few months old and is pretty skinny, but clean looking.   Baby J loves the Kitty Cat and so far they do well with each other.   We sometimes give the kitty snacks.  Baby J has started to look for 'kitty cats' everywhere.  She says Kitty Cat, Puppy, and bye bye very clearly now and does so often.  I think she thought Petco was the greatest place ever with all the pictures of pets and the dogs that were there.

At 16 months now, baby J is walking all the time, a huge climber (which often results in falls) and when she is with me, she's usually pretty independent.  She jabbers all the time and now has many words within her conversations.   I asked her one day where her stars went (something that plays at night for her) and she looked up and said their gone.   It is amazing how quickly little ones learn.   She can buckle the top part of her seatbelt now and loves to do so.

While we still have some problems with fussiness at child care she is doing so much better most of the time.   Our sitter does such a great job and I'm sad that J will be going to a different place in November---but I also can't keep doing 3 hrs on the road every day with my schedule.   Poor Baby J and the little boy at childcare suffered from Hand foot and mouth disease this past week.   It came so quickly.  Thankfully J could still go to daycare since they both had it and she is on the mend.   Actually I'm pretty sure she's over it, but her skin keeps marks forever-  it looks like bug bites never heal.  I'm so glad she is feeling better.    Now if we could only get a better night time routine going.   If she gets any sleep on the way home from rehearsal she is up forever and many times very hyper.    I love listening to her talk and have fun.   She is doing really well at rehearsal and the kids are enjoying her most nights.  

We haven't gotten to do a lot of activities together.  Between the move, being sick, and rehearsals our time has been crazy.   We did go to our town fall fest and watch the parade and then Grandma and Grandpa took her to the rest where I know she ate, looked at crafts, and went to a petting zoo.

Baby J is growing up so fast and I'm having so much fun watching her grow.  She cracks me up on a daily basis.   Life has been kind of rough in some areas...but Baby J always makes me smile.  I often have moments where I suddenly remember this baby used to be the size of my two hands.  She's come so far.