Kaitlyn’s first word was “hot”. She had touched the front of the oven and I said “no, don’t touch, it’s hot” (it wasn’t even on, but she didn’t know that), and that was the beginning of her understanding that she could make sounds that got enthusiastic responses from the people around her.She now seems to think that the oven is called a “hot”.

Her next word was “hat”, and it is coupled with her love of putting on any hat in the house at any time of the day.

She points out toy figures with hats, people on TV wearing hats, she loves hats.

But her most favorite sound of all, is “boo”, sometimes pronounced “buh”. It is a multi-purpose word that means:

• Bath

I have had to give her a few daytime baths recently, once after a Cocoa Puffs breakfast and another time after she insisted on feeding herself her yogurt at lunch. So now she thinks anytime she gets messy at a meal, she should get a bath. I let her down from the highchair, and she runs right to the bathroom door, stands there and points at it saying “BUH! BUH!”

• Bib
• Bottle
• Blanket
• Spoon-if she is eating anything, even crackers, she wants to be holding a spoon.
• Boot-Her most favorite “B” word. She also loves wearing her boots, or other people’s, in the house. And any time any of us put on our winter gear to go outside, she runs to grab her little boots thinking she is going too. Here she is preparing to stomp through the city crushing cars and buildings, in her Snowman jammies.

For a 15 month old, I think Kaitlyn is pretty smart. I’ve been trying really hard to remember what the boys were like at this age, and I’m sad to say that I can barely remember it. I don’t remember if they were already good at finding lost things like Kaitlyn is, if they could take crumpled napkins and bits of scrap paper to the kitchen to throw in the trash, if they were scribbling with pencils and crayons. I do remember that by the time he was two, Ryan could put his own video in the VCR and push “play”, and that he could play a Blue’s Clues computer game by himself. When Nathan was 15 months old, I remember he climbed on everything, like Kaitlyn does now.

This morning, she climbed on a kitchen chair, and then right up on to the kitchen table, where she dumped out the salt shaker and then drew designs in it with her finger. And no, I don’t have a baby gate for the kitchen entrance, because that’s where the dog and cat food dishes are, and I go in there a dozen or more times a day. I know, I know, I should have a gate anyway.

As the youngest child myself, I can sympathize with Kaitlyn’s need to assert herself in our family. She has already learned to defend anything that she wants to keep for herself, and to loudly demand her share of food and toys. Punctuated by loud screechy shrieks that pierce my head like arrows. And when she doesn’t get what she wants, oh, MAN. She doesn’t throw temper tantrums, she just makes really funny disgusted/annoyed faces:

Notice the cup of coffee sitting right next to the laptop in that last photo! Yes, I have learned my lesson about keeping liquids next to the computer! I miss my Dell! Waaaah!

Ahem. So that’s what I wanted to remember about Kaitlyn today. Her love of words that start with “B”, and her funny, smart, unique personality. My husband hugged me the other night and thanked me for making three such terrific, amazing kids. I reminded him that he did help create them, but he said “but it’s you who MADE them.”

I love that man.

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