My Big Girl

My Sweet Girl, my little love, is walking unassisted. I am such a proud Mama. It was like night and day; one day she was scared to take more than a couple of steps and the next she was walking all around. I still can't believe it when I see her toddling around with her arms in the air like Frankenstein. How far she's come in the past 21 months!

Every day my heart hurts from all the cute. Margaret's little personality is coming out full force these days. I guess it is the willfulness of her age. She is defiant and cranky and opinionated. Then in the next minute she is the sweetest little girl in the world, full of hugs and kisses. I love all of it.

Right now her favorite toy is some magnetic letters David got her from the dollar store. She has been obsessed with the alphabet for quite some time. I estimate that she knew all her letters by the time she was 15 months adjusted, maybe earlier. And now at 18 months adjusted, I'm almost certain she knows the order, too. At first, her extreme interest and skill at learning these scared me. I was a afraid that she was showing signs of hyperlexia. These days, though, it has become apparent that she is truly not showing any other signs of this disorder so I have been able to breathe easier and just enjoy her playing with her letters while repeating their names to herself, "coo", "sssss", "Eeee!!!", "ahh", "exsh", "huh", etc.

Margaret has also learned all of her numbers (digits) in the past couple of weeks. She has a favorite number, seven. She will sit in front of the fridge with the seven in one hand and another letter or number in the other and the two have little conversations. This little dialog invariably leads to her "hugging" the seven between her shoulder and jaw and carrying it all around the kitchen in this position. Other times if I ask her where seven is, she will grab it off the fridge and hug it while cooing like she is loving on it.

I told you, so cute, it hurts.