and Caroline?

Caroline is a sweet little girl with a strong will. There are two areas where this is most evident at the moment. The first is eating. At times, she will just refuse to eat one food and want another. It isn't that she doesn't like the first food, it's just that she wants something different. We're ok with her not eating things, but she doesn't get to waste one for another. So, there have been several battles over food lately. She's going to learn about authority, though.

She loves her Daddy, Mommy, and brother. She loves to play with Nathan. She will follow him anywhere to do anything. She has really become a Mommy's girl. She often just wants me to carry her around. Last Friday, while trying to pack to go out of town, I carried her around. It wasn't the easiest, but I want her to feel loved. I was especially inclined to give her extra attention because I was about to leave for a day and a half.

She loves shoes and bows but could do without dresses. If I give her an opinion of which bow to wear, she quickly chooses one. When we went to try on shoes for the beach, there was one pair that she really liked and several that she obviously did not like. It was very funny to me that a 16 month old could have such opinions already.

She loves to eat. She is doing some major teething at the moment. She has one molar coming in and has several other teeth (at least four) that are really close to the surface. Poor girl!

Caroline is quickly picking up words. She repeats words and sounds that people say and has a good list of regularly used words. Here are some additions (and their pronunciations) since the last list:

hey - hay
ball - baw
juice - joos (also refers to anything in a cup)
bow - boh
please - peez
thank you - ay choo
all gone - ah gawn, gah gawn
bubble - buh bah
water - ??
bug - buh

She has actually gotten pretty good at using "please" and "thank you". It's quite adorable. She often says "thank you" when she means "please", but she's slowly getting that figured out.

She also sings. Most of the time she is imitating someone else singing or music that she hears. There are not words, but the sound is very nice.

Caroline knows lots of body parts. She has recently adopted a favorite, though - elbow. She calls it "bow bow". When I would first ask her where her elbow was, she would grab the bow in her hair. However, once she figured it out, she really decided that she liked elbows. In fact, on Sunday, while I was talking to the dad of one of the kids on my hall at church, she started rubbing his elbow. Glad he was a dad!

Ok. I think that's it. I'll keep thinking, though.