Stasa, 17 months old

Stasa's almost a year and a half already and her personality becomes more defined each day and we find ourselves laughing all the time at some new thing she does.


We play in the playroom while Tom prepares dinner each night and when he calls up "dinner's ready!" Stasa runs over to the gate and walks down the stairs with assistance and then bee-lines for her highchair. She's getting better about eating what's served and always tries something before refusing to eat it. We can usually trick her into eating things by dipping them in ketchup. She ate grilled tuna for the first time this week, but only after I dipped it in Catalina dressing, which was disgusting. But at least she ate half a tuna steak. I've also had to stop having a drink with dinner because if she sees my cup, she'll refuse to eat anything until she can drink all of my milk or juice. So after she's eaten a good amount, I've been bringing out a little bit of milk in a big girl cup (no lid!) for her. She drinks most of it without spilling and puts the cup down on her tray in between sips and goes "ahhhh!" each time. I don't know where she picks up these little things, but it's so funny when she does it.


Stasa's such a happy kid when she wakes up each morning and usually wakes up talking to her bears that sleep with her. Once we come in, she gets up and helps us hang her blankets over the rails, then she grabs her 2 bears and is ready to get changed for the day. Those 2 bears seem to go everywhere with her nowadays; 1 is a bear Dan and Jenny brought back from Harrod's and the other is the first bear we built at Build-a-Bear. 


And don't you know those bears come back into her room when it's time for bed. We tell her to "say night night" and she grabs those bears and RUNS to her room. And the bears have to come up on the changing table when she gets into her pajamas, too. As soon as we put Stasa in her crib, she crawls around and pulls down all of her blankets and then curls up with her bears. We've been putting her to bed a little early, anytime between 7:30 and 8:00 PM and most nights she spends a good 15-20 minutes talking to her bears before falling asleep. 


She's recently become obsessed with our hairbrushes and combs and always grabs one when she comes in our room each morning. Then she walks around trying to comb her hair, but only manages to brush a few hairs into her face. And if I sit down she'll "brush" my hair, too. It's amazing how much she picks up from our daily routine. She'll play in the bathroom every morning while I do my hair and makeup, so now I know she's paying attention to everything. 


I'm thinking of buying a training potty seat soon since she knows when she poops and will tell us when we ask. I'm sure it's probably way too early, but I figure it can't hurt. I'll just put it in the bathroom and will bring her in whenever we go in there, too. I should probably start researching best practices with potty training, too, so I can be prepared.