The weather

The weather has been so weird here lately. The sky looks like it's about to open and rain for days and days, but at the most it just spits a little and says, "Ha! You couldn't go on your walk today because you thought I would rain down on you, but I refuse to water your grass!" But tonight as I was leaving church it was really odd- it was raining, technically I suppose you'd call it that, but it didn't feel like rain. It felt like it was just so.darn.humid that the water droplets were just floating in the air, waiting for you to walk or drive through them.

Meanwhile, despite our incredibly humid summers, I am looking forward to this summer for a lot of reasons. Ryan and I decided that we'd get pool tags since Beth is at the perfect age to start enjoying it. I'm so excited! I plan to spend one to two hours at the pool every afternoon (after 3:00 of course, Mom) and let Beth wear herself out. Plus this means I (hopefully!) won't be the whitest person at the beach this summer. ;-)

Beth is at the best age right now for doing beginning toddler-y things. She likes going to the park and climbing the stairs, walking across the bridge and going down the slide- but I have to be right there with her because she still doesn't have the balance and coordination for that yet. She likes her sandbox still but only in small increments of time. And she's starting to get into fantasy play, which is incredibly neat to see that part of her blooming. She understands that things have uses- the phone goes to her ear, the sunglasses go on her head, the collar goes on Finley... A few days ago she grabbed a diaper wipe and started to wipe herself! With these changes though have come other changes... Like her starting to hit or bite me when she doesn't get her way, screaming because of displeasure (although I guess she's always done that but now it's a little different!) and throwing things when I ask her for them. If she's holding something she knows she shouldn't have and I say, "Beth, please give that to mommy" and start to walk to her, she'll throw it with the all the force she has in the other direction. And let me tell you the girl has quite an arm already! It's definitely a new phase and I don't know how to handle it yet! Gentle disciple book suggestions, anyone?

Today was her 15-month checkup. She got her second-ever vaccination and a prescription for some ear-numbing drops for our airplane trip next month. She's 22 lbs 15 oz (50-75%), 31 1/2 inches (75-90%) and her head is in the 90th percentile! (Fat heads tend to run in my family, hehehe.) He said she looks perfect! Although I have to really try harder to make her drink milk. She has not expressed any interest in plain, chocolate or strawberry milk, but the pediatrician said she should be drinking 16 oz (!!!) a day. Apparently all the yogurt and cheese she eats isn't high enough in vitamin D, and she's only nursing about twice daily now so I'm not a reliable source either. I'm just going to keep offering it to her and hope she takes it sometime soon!

I promise I have been trying to get good pictures of her. But, as I mentioned earlier, she understands that items have functions now so whenever I pull out the camera she wants to look at the screen instead of pose! Needless to say I'm having a hard time getting anything other than the back of her head. I will keep trying and get some good ones to add hopefully tomorrow.