17 Months!

Little Miss Violet turned 17 months old on Tuesday!  She is a great light in our lives, and she is quickly becoming the noisiest, most rambunctious, silliest, troublemaker in our family.  ;-)   She has two switches - ON and OFF.  And she is usually ON!

Violet loves music - I know I've been saying this since she was born, but it is true.  She loves music more than anyone I've ever met, and she can bang out her own tunes on the piano.  Loudly.  ;-)

She loves wearing dresses. She loves going to the park.  She loves distributing all the contents of our house evenly over the floor. 

She loves to steal whatever food you are eating and eat it herself.  She loves new experiences, and is definitely sensory seeking.  This is new to us because Paprika was such a sensory avoider (still is) and Ginger was middle of the road.  Baby Violet will put anything in her mouth - and she does.  I often find her trying to eat gravel.  Or her shoe.  Or dirt.  Or a crayon.  Or sticks.  Or dog food.

You get the point...




She loves to laugh, and act silly, and dance.  She is not a great talker yet - but she does have some words she can say.   She can say a lot of words by themselves (victory!, bottle, please, mama, daddy, dog, daisy, etc.) but she's not putting them together yet.

 Her speech limitations frustrate her to no end!  I know all she wants to do is talk just like her sisters, and she's so mad that she can't say what she wants to say.  A lot of times, I will just ask her what she wants and she will say Yes! or No!  That helps things a little bit...

When Paprika was this age, she could speak in paragraphs and recite movies and sing songs verbatim after one hearing.  So, I really took it for granted that such verbosity was typical at this age.  And, I guess it's not typical!   Violet is right on target (if not a little advanced) linguistically - but she's still not where she wants to be.  So, I am trying to be patient with her, help her learn those words, and also teach her some sign language so she can tell me what she wants. 

Physically, Violet is way ahead.  She has two older sisters to chase, so no wonder!  She can climb, jump, problem solve...part of the "problem" is that she thinks she's five years old already.  Haha.

I have always found this age to be a tough one - but it is also such a sweet age, too.  It goes by so fast, and I know before long, I'll be wondering when she'll stop talking.  ;-)

Until then, I'll just listen to her music on the piano as she plays me her songs...