16 months

Pancake is a walking talking machine. She was discharged from physical therapy last week. She has been walking since she was 14 months and has continued to improve her balance and speed. She can navigate uneven terrain and even picks up some speed at times.

She adores Doodle more than ever. She loves playing ball and trains with him, really she loves anything he's doing.

She has a bit of a sweet tooth, just like everyone else in her family. We recently cut puffs and graham crackers from her diet because she was refusing all other food (bananas, Cheerios, peaches etc. . .). She whined a bit the first few days but has since rekindled her love of healthy breakfast foods. She knows where some things are kept and helps herself to the food items on the bottom shelf of the pantry cupboard (picture below of her eating corn flakes out of the box).

People have been asking me if she and Doodle are different or more similar. I have to say it's a bit of both. They are different in that Doodle was a calm, even-keeled, go-with-the-flow baby and Pancake is anything but. She takes after her mother. She wants things the way she wants them and gets cranky when someone tells her differently. She has taken to thrusting her head back and whining loudly if I take her from an activity she wants to do and throws herself on the floor if I direct her away from something she's trying to get to.They're also different in that it took Doodle until age two or later to figure out some things that Pancake can figure out now. I'm trying to think of an example but nothing is coming to mind at the moment. It's something I've observed though. Pancake eats a lot more sugary foods than Doodle was ever allowed to eat because she sees her brother eating ice cream or cookies and I think it mean to not let her have what she sees others enjoying. Sometimes we take her into the living room some while Doodle has dessert.

But she and Doodle are quite similar too. They both love to eat and will try just about anything, they both use the pacifier to help them sleep (the use of the present tense was not an error -- Doodle still sleeps with a pacifier), they both charm strangers wherever we go, and they both are pretty daring on the playground equipment. They also both go to bed very well and sleep through the night reliably, both of which I truly appreciate. They're both super cute, too.

She's been clingy to me lately, which is annoying when I'm trying to cut vegetables with a sharp knife or take a heavy pan out of the oven. I've been prepping dinner while she naps in the afternoon, which I don't always have time to do.

Pancake's vocabulary and verbal skills are soaring to new heights all the time. Occasionally she says four and five-word sentences and often conveys two and three-word sentences. Mr. D gets up with her in the mornings if she wakes before 7:00, which is most of the time, and has taught her to raise one hand and say "me" when asked, "Who loves Mommy?" or "Who loves Daddy?" One morning Mr. D forgot their newly established routine of asking and answering, so Pancake said, "Who loves Mommy? ME!" with her cute little arm raised.

She insisted on wearing my grandmother's necklace.