18 months old!

Ria is now 18 months old!

She's 26.75 pounds, and 33.75 inches. Tall and trim.

-16 teeth - for a while there we were getting one a week. UGH!
- still crawls, fast as the dickens.
- cruises the furniture
- @~ 17.25 months, she finally started letting go while standing for a second or two at a time. But this has not progressed much.
- still not walking, but there's nothing physically holding her back. Our pediatrician thinks its all in her head, she's uncertain about letting go. The musculature is all there.
- climbs both up and down stairs safely. climbs onto the beds. climbs up the kitchen stools and will happily take one bite out of each pear on the counter...climbs, climbs, climbs.

She is starting the language spurt!
"Beep" was her 1st fully enunciated word. She's still terribly proud of her lovely "p" at the end. She likes to point at things and say "DIS", to ask what "this" is called. Repeat ad infinitum. Noone but us can really understand, but we're enjoying the better communication.

She's quite "toddler". She'll say "NO" while doing/almost doing things she's not supposed to do. "Uh oh" while she actively drops or tosses things to where she can't get it. She'll insist that she's done eating when you know she's starving (Sorry, girl, 2 bites just don't fill that belly of yours!), just so she can get down and mess with whatever she saw from the table that looked interesting. She will get ANGRY at Iain if she can't grab what she wants, and has headbutted him once. She will get ANGRY when it takes you more than 20 seconds to change her diaper. She still will blow kisses at the drop of a hat, and leans in cutely for a real kiss if she's in the mood. She will open the screen door, crawl out, say "buh bye!", and close the door in your face, only to open it again 2 seconds later.

Here's a cute video from several weeks ago, with Ria and Iain enjoying "Dance of the Blue Turtles" by Sting. Notice how she copies Iain when he bangs the floor ;-).