Larkyn 14 months

Larkyn - 14 months

Larkyn turned 14 months yesterday!  She continues to grow in personality, words, and activities.

This month Larkyn started pulling up, figuring out stairs, walking with a walker, and learning how to slowly "cruise" along the side of a table, etc.  She is still in the very beginning stages of each of these things, however.  One interesting personality trait I am picking up on with Larkyn is that she is the opposite of daring!  She wants to feel completely safe in an activity before she will do it!  With several of the above activities she would refuse to try even though she was physically able, and cry until she could "walk" holding our hands!  It will be interesting to see if this trait continues as she grows.  In the meantime, she makes it easy on mom, keeping herself a lot safer than many kids her age!

I got here all by myself :)

Larkyn has really started exercising her will this month!  For that reason, this month has been one of the most challenging months with her.  The battles have mostly been surrounding two things - walking and mealtime.  With walking, Larkyn ALWAYS wants to walk - like, ALL the time - but she wants me to hold her hands!  As you can imagine, a mom of three cannot always oblige this request and thus come the gut wrenching sorrowful tears from little Larky Loo!  The other battle has surrounded mealtime.  Our "non-picky" eater has suddenly grown opinionated!  She absolutely LOVES strawberries and grapes, and when those fruits are in the vicinity (i.e. on the table or on someone else's plate) she will refuse to eat anything on her tray and will point and scream until given strawberries or grapes.  Fighting this battle (the one of "you must eat what is on your tray before you get anything else" has made for many loud mealtimes and very prolonged tantrums from the smallest member of our family.  After a long three weeks of consistency, Larkyn FINALLY learned!  Now she knows she must eat what is on her tray first.  When that is gone, she very likely will get herself a grape or a strawberry ;).  The battle was completely worth it, but was not fun for the rest of the family, for sure.  It was good, though, I think for Summer and Colton to see the same rule they live by enforced upon their little sister, and I think they learned a lot from watching the whole scenerio about how it looks when they decide to buck the rules with tears :).  In any case, Larkyn's tearful tantrums are SO MUCH LESS now and she truly is a much better behaved little girl after coming through these tough three weeks.

Success!  Eating her turkey and cheese sandwich with a smile even though her brother and sister have strawberries on their plates!  (Yes she did get quite a few strawberries when she finished!)

Larkyn continues to bee-bop to music and loves her "good morning" song the older two and I sing after bedtime and naps.  She is officially down to one nap a day, and is in her crib from 2-4pm.  We finished the second round of Larkyn's Beginner Bible this week (we read it each day after her nap) and we continue to pray that as she grows she will understand Christ's gift of salvation.  She is starting to look older now, I think, as she is now wearing "big kid" velcro shoes and adding a ponytail to her hairstyle repertoire.  I am absolutely smitten by your smile, dimple, and cuddles Ms. Larkyn!  I love you SO much!

Look at my ponytail!

Here are a few random videos of Larkyn from this past month...