Hattie at 18 months.

Holy Smokes. I don't remember this season with my other two. Or at least I didn't remember it until Hattie reminded me. This is where that motherhood amnesia thing is very, very real. But I am here to tell you that 18 months is SO BUSY. Non-stop busy. Hattie is into everything. And then moving that everything into other rooms. Each evening the other four of us spend a good deal of time putting the house back in order, back from Hattie's day of play.

She climbs chairs and prefers to sit on top of tables. She takes books off of bookshelves, garbage out of garbage cans, shreds toilet paper all over the house, brings everyone their shoes to whatever room they are in, trails dish towels wherever she goes, empties drawers and cabinets, and pulls down anything she can reach on the counter top. She is tall and able. Tonight she pulled a sheet of paper down that was peeking over the edge of the counter, that sadly had a jar of cold queso on it. Which fell on her. Thankfully she recovered quickly, but seriously! When she is awake, we are seconds away from disaster.

But she is so darling. Man we love her so much. And she is so excited for adventure. She brings us our shoes because she is always ready to go! She understands our words now, and follows our instructions. It's really amazing.

And she is the center of our family. I don't know how to explain that, but she really is like our mascot. Last night she lifted her hands in the air and said, "aaaeeeuuaaa!" And suddenly she had all four of us, raising our hands and shouting, "Alleluja!" She did it again, and so did we. She was the leader, we waited for her command. And we played that Alleluja family game for a long, long time.

She is such a gift to us. So messy to clean up after mealtime. So busy and free spirited. And when it is bedtime she is pleased to get to go and rest. She waves to everyone saying nigh nigh and crawls up the stairs. And then once she's in bed, and we've cleaned the house after her busy day, I miss her.