17 months

Pancake is at that wonderful age where her voice is incredibly sweet and she’s using it all the time. Her vocabulary is out of control. She expresses herself in complete sentences sometimes and articulate phrases the rest of the time. We stayed at my brother’s house for two nights and he and his wife have a dog named Cooper. Pancake didn’t fear Cooper, in fact they touched tongues once. When Cooper got a little too close to her without her permission she would tap her chest and say, “No eat Cooper,” or “No dinner Cooper,” meaning that he was not to make her his dinner. It was adorable.

She prefers to walk than to be carried. She’s still a little unsteady on her feet but she recovers well and is even starting to conquer uneven terrain and thresholds between rooms. Her hair in pigtails is the cutest thing I’ve seen.
She has been more obedient than her brother lately. When I tell her to put something down or not to touch something she will do as I ask. She plays baseball in the yard with Doodle and Mr. D. She loves it. She holds the too-big-for-her yellow plastic waffle ball bat and slightly moves her entire body to attempt to hit the ball. Then she’ll say either OUT or STRIKE. She yells out PHILLIES when there is any sport on a field (football, baseball, soccer). She likes to sport her pink Phillies hat. She’s still very interested in wearing her shoes or anyone else’s shoes.

She’s learning her colors. She knows green, yellow, white, pink and sometimes blue. She’ll repeat absolutely anything you say even if it’s a multi-syllable word. She’s very polite. One of her favorite things to say is “tank ooo, Mom.” She also says, “sorry” when she’s trying to get by or stepping over something instead of excuse me. When I sneeze she says, “besh ooo.”

Of course, she still adores her big brother. He makes her laugh just by running or hopping around. When she’s upset we can count on Doodle to cheer her up. Doodle can also be rough with her when she’s messing up his train tracks or standing in the middle of the baseball game he’s trying to play with Mr. D. But for the most part he is very good to her and she is good to him too. Watching them play together is incredibly gratifying.

We’re in the car driving home from Vermont as I type this so I will post a picture of Pancake when we get home.