18 Months

Our sweet Quinny is a year and a half. Where does the time go? This little one keeps us so busy, the days whirl by in a frenzy and here we are with a little person, not a baby.

Quinn is the most joyous child I have ever spent time with. She shrieks with laughter throughout the day (mostly at or with her sister), falls down and bounces back up again to keep running, and has this happy-go-lucky lightness about her.

She's my little caboose, trying to keep up with the big kids, but rarely gets frustrated with her role.

She climbs like a monkey (finally the whole length of our stairs, onto tables, play structures, etc.), slides, runs, dances, twirls, throws, kicks.

Shouts "Yay!" when she is excited about something (milk at the grocery store, breakfast, pulling into Jackson's driveway), says "coooooool" when she's fascinated, and loves to say "No! No! No!" and do the exact opposite thing we're asking her to do. Always. If we walk to the car, she goes back to the house. If we call her inside, she runs to the bottom of our yard and hides behind the bushes. When we catch up to her she pretty much always laughs at herself (or us?).

And yes, she has a flair for the dramatic, throwing herself on the ground several times a day to protest not getting her way. Wonder where she gets that from?

She is into everything~ flushing toilets, emptying q-tips, pulling toilet paper from the roll into the toilet, dog food into water dish, uncapping all Ella's markers while drawing on her face, spilling milk on floor and fingerpainting with it, climbing into dishwasher, emptying her drawers, the library is pretty much off-limits, climbs up slide and crashes down the the floor shouting "Weeeeeeeeeee!!!!!!".

Do you get the picture? If I wasn't so busy laughing at her I would probably cry.

We took away her "Bobble" a couple weeks ago. Strangely she drank her milk from a cup 3 times a day for 7 days before she realized she was mad about it. Then cried and pitched fits for 2 days. She still wakes up and calls "bobblebobblebobblebobblebobblebobblebobble" but happily sucks it down from a cup.

She weighs 30 pounds and is 34 1/2 inches tall. Over 97th% for each.

Her speech is increasing daily, lots and lots of words and she pretty much doesn't stop chatting all day long.

It is so sweet to catch the two girls interacting. Ella likes to explain how to do things, or why things are, or what to do, or what to say. Quinn mostly says "MINE" or "NO" to Ella (mirroring, possibly?), but also loves to give her hugs (essentially a tackle on the floor) and says "Nite-nite" and always keeps tabs on what big sister is up to. School days are difficult for Quinn when we're home alone. "Ewa? Ewa? Ewa?" She pretty much hero-worships her sister. They play chase, stroller derby and hide the toy where Quinn can't reach it.

Sorry, Quinn for not posting more monthly updates about you. If you weren't so dang active I might have. Sorry, too, for not having as many pictures of you as we did of Ella. You don't stand still long enough to get a clear photo, and if, by some divine intervention, we get a good shot of you, you inevitably have snot running down your face, or food smeared around your mouth. I swore I would keep it equal, but you learned to walk and my world turned upside-down.

Case in point~ Immobilized by the wagon, but face smeared with mud from face-planting in the corn maze and snot and z-bar goo. Lookin' good, girl!

Pulling out nasturtiums

At the Stone House on a hike with friends, trying to catch up to Jackson

Last swim of the season in the Franklin pool, late September

An early morning snuggle