16 months

Tessie has successfully made it through a short week at daycare. The first time I dropped her off, she was so excited to see the muffins they were giving out for breakfast that she didn’t even notice me leave (in tears, mind you). She started on Wednesday and her teachers say that she has adjusted amazingly well. They love her (who wouldn’t?) and she has lots of fun all day with the other kids. She is probably just happy to have a steady routine now because August was a hectic month.
We went to Long Island to meet her new friend Katarina. She was obsessed with her and was sure to let everyone know there was a baby around by signing “baby” to exhaustion. I think the whole experience motivated her to finally say the word “baby”. She now needs reminders not to call kids that are bigger than her “baby”. She also says “by-byeee”
Tessie and I went with Grampa, Uncle Dave, and Midnight to New Hampshire for 4 days. She met more kids at the beach and had fun chasing Midnight around. Again, she was doing the sign (for dog this time) a ton to be sure that we all noticed the dog in the house. Tessie and Midnight had fun and, the partners in crime that they are, learned that if the two of them pushed together, they could get the screen door open and make their great escape to the outdoors. Luckily I was watching when they made their run for it. She also learned the sign for motorcycle after sitting on Uncle Dave’s.
Tessie is almost able to reach to doorknobs (and knows to twist them) so childproofing is a work in progress again. Whenever Tessie was doing something wrong/unsafe Nana Sally said “ba-ba-ba!” when she stayed with us, so now whenever Tessie is on her own getting into mischief we hear Tessie saying “ba-ba-ba!”. She is her own worst enemy when she gets herself into trouble. She loves to sit at the kitchen table at an adult chair, but can’t quite be trusted. She can feed herself with a spoon, as long as the food is somewhat sticky, like applesauce, yogurt, or cereal soaked in milk. I still can’t get her to drink milk straight up, but she is starting to at daycare when she sees the other kids doing it. - Sorry this update is so long, but there was just so much to say. Tessie is growing so fast! And she has finally sprouted her 3rd tooth. I think the 4th is not too far behind.