Catherine is 17 months old as of today!

She has been quite busy in the learning and growing departments.

The other day we were playing with a little beach ball in her room, and I heard her say the word “ball”. Later on, we were out in the living room, and I asked her if she could go and get her ball. She walked over to her room, picked up the ball, and brought it out to us. Wow!

Her manual dexterity has really taken off – she’s great at taking things apart and putting them back together. She’s got the hang of buckles and clasps, and I’m sure that she’ll figure out how to unbuckle her car seat pretty soon. At church on Sunday she had slipped a crayon out of its wrapper, and then put it back in. The other night, she was playing with an accordion filing folder, and it appears that she has learned how to flip through it: either quickly with her first two fingers, or slowly by just flicking her index finger.

A few nights ago, Catherine took Becky’s cell phone into her room, and (probably slightly by luck) speed-dialed my phone and then babbled to me for a bit. She’s got the cell-phone posture down pat – she’ll hold it in between her shoulder and ear, head cocked to the side.

She can now not only climb up the front of her high chair, but also the side, up and over. She can also easily climb up into our desk chair and operate the computer.

She’s picked up from us the practice of blowing on her food if it’s hot. We all have fun taking turns blowing on our food when we have a hot dish. 🙂

As for saying words, she’s got: mama, mommy, dada, hi, hiya, ball, teeth, up, kitty, “ted” for her teddy bear, and we heard her say “might” quite clearly the other night, but there wasn’t any context behind it, so I’m not sure she’s got the comprehension. 🙂 There are a lot of other words she clearly understands, but doesn’t actually say yet, like nose, banana, and shoes.

Dear Catherine, what will you do next?