Andrej, Jessica, Kaiya and Tobi

On Halloween we took Kaiya in for her 15-month well baby check-up. I'm not sure what I was thinking when I scheduled that appointment on Halloween, knowing it would include shots, but in the end it was fine and Kaiya had no problems trick-or-treating. She weighed in at an unbelievable 26 lbs! I knew she was getting heavy, but 26 lbs is a lot of baby. Once again we forgot to ask what percentile that is, but I have a feeling she is topping the charts. She was just over 32" tall. Our doctor assured us that her appetite and weight gain will start to slow down over the next few months. The check-up concluded that Kaiya is healthy and right on target developmentally.

Speaking of developments, it seems like just yesterday I was writing about all of her incredible new tricks in her 12-month post and now those are distant memories. At 12 months, Kaiya started walking. At 15 months she runs, walks backwards, turns round and round in circles and loves to kick, throw and chase after balls. Over the last few months, to keep our active one busy, we took trips to the lake shore, enjoyed local parks, went to weekly swim lessons, attended many play groups, played outside, played on the "breakfast foods" at the mall, discovered a nature center with fun walking trials complete with snakes (ick!), turtles and other fun animals, played in the falling leaves and truly enjoyed each other and the weather before the snow comes.

The last few months brought about many new developments and one not so welcomed was the dropping of the blessed morning nap. It was a tough transition, but one I'm thankful we made it through. I was really reluctant to give up that morning break, but Kaiya, as sleepy as she seemed to me, would just jump and play in her crib for as long as I left her there. However, looking back it really has been a blessing. We are now free to enjoy our mornings out and about and she then zonks right out and takes a good afternoon nap. She still goes to bed around 7:30 pm, but sleeps in until 8:30 or 9:00 am most mornings. You will never hear this mama complain one bit about that!

In the language department, she has picked up a few new words, but prefers to babble on using the funniest intonation than to actually use her vocabulary. Since her 12 month post she has added such words as bib (bi-bee), belly button (be buh), yeah, night-night (ni ni), uh oh! (uh uh!) and a whole slew of animal noises. Her best animal impressions are of dogs (ahr-ahr-ahr), which she promptly does each and every time she steps foot out of our door. Our neighbors' golden retriever spends a good bit of time outside in a fence and Kaiya will stand in our driveway staring at the fence saying, "Ahr, ahr, ahr" until Trigger appears, or doesn't appear and we have to move her along. She is not afraid of dogs at all, and will go up to even very large dogs to greet them and pet away, as you can see in the picture.

Her sign language however has exploded and I really think if I weren't so lazy she would learn the signs as fast as I could teach her. The latest ones we've added are "please" and "help". She does them in her own way, but she knows and we know what she is communicating and it really has cut down on the whining when she gets frustrated. My favorite sign for a while was "again" as it really stroked my ego. I would belt out my best rendition of "You Are My Sunshine" or "Itsy Bitsy Spider" and the biggest smile would spread across her face and her little palm and pointer finger would meet as she ferociously signed "again," but lately "again" has gotten a little annoying at times. She is in this stage where she wants the same book read over and over and over again, and before you can even turn the last page she is already signing "again". After reading, "Mr. Brown Can Moo! Can You?" for the fifteenth time in a row that "again" sign is the last thing I want to see. I just have to remind myself that reading to Kaiya is really one of the only ways I can get her to sit in my lap for any length of time so I usually close my eyes and soak her in while reciting the book from memory as she turns the pages.

Kaiya gives the world's best kisses. You can see some of that in this video and this one. She loves to kiss us, kiss her stuffed animals, and kiss every single animal or character in her books. She will kiss her shoes, her toys, the baby on her yo-baby yogurt carton and even the TV screen if we let her get close enough when there is an animal or baby on the screen. She will even let her stuffed animals kiss each other, complete with smacking noises. It is adorable and even more so when you are the subject of her kisses, drool and all.

Kaiya has also become our little helper. When asked she can complete a myriad of helpful tasks ranging from closing doors to locating the dish towel she swiped from the counter earlier. She can put apples in the fruit bowl and put laundry in the basket. The other day we were in a small store where I was looking for special overnight diapers. I didn't bother strapping her into the cart because I was sure the small store wouldn't have the diapers because we had just been to Wal-Mart, Target and Meijer in search of them without any luck. I had resolved to just order them online, but wanted to check this last store just in case. Thankfully they did have two small packages, and I wanted both, but couldn't carry Kaiya, the diaper bag and both diaper packages. Kaiya was already standing beside me playing with one of the packages so I took the other one and asked her to carry her package to the check-out counter for me. She proudly scooped up the package and carried it all the way to counter only dropping it once. I picked her up and she gave the diapers to the clerk. What a big helper!!!

Some of Kaiya's favorite things are still reading books, playing with her stuffed animals, taking baths, playing with balls, music and dancing, her daddy coming home from work, her little pink purse that she carries around all day putting items in and taking items out, hugs and kisses, toys, her Little People doll house and of course FOOD!

She is obsessed with her belly button and needs to see it throughout the day, I guess to make sure it's still there. She sticks her tiny finger in and says, "beh buh, beh buh!" She is also obsessed with other people's "beh-buhs" as well. She can get a little testy if you refuse to show her yours in oh say a public setting. She even tells her belly button "bye-bye" as I cover it up with her diaper, clothes or jammies.

Kaiya also enjoys a good game of "I'm gonna getcha" and just being chased in general. Her latest game is when I announce that we are going bye-bye and she needs to get her coat, a cheeky grin spreads across her face and she turns and runs from me until I hunt her down and wrap her in her coat. This game is particularly fun when we are running late and really need to leave. No matter what game we are playing or book we are reading, Kaiya is a joy to be around. She is so much fun and brings so much more to our lives that just 15 short months ago we didn't even know existed.