And the beat goes on.....

We are closing out the first week of June and it is hard not to feel as though time is just slipping away from me. I can clearly remember my Mom commenting as we were growing up at how quickly the time passed and she would warn me that it would only speed up the older I got. Mom if you are keeping track...which I know you are...you can add this to your ever growing list of "Things I Was Right About". Sad but true...I am older and the time goes faster.

Rhea turned 18 months this week and my oh my what changes we have seen. This girl of ours already has a very distinct sense of humor and absolutely LOVES to make us laugh and loves even more to make herself laugh. Just this morning I awoke in a decidedly dicey mood (I think the teething of the past week and the resulting lack of sleep had caught up with me) Rhea took one look at me and threw herself on the floor and started thrashing all about making funny faces. When I started laughing she continued with even more gusto cracking herself the whole while. It was just what I needed to take some stock and realize that just because my body felt slow and tired it didn't mean my mind had to follow suit.

This month has brought an increase in communication...verbal, nonverbal, telekinesis...well maybe not telekinesis but I swear sometimes it feels as though that little bean is actually sending me messages and somehow I am picking them up. In fact the other day as we were in the waiting room at the pediatrician, another mother commented on my skill at deciphering and responding to the steady stream of "uh..uh...uhhhh's!!" that Rhea is constantly expressing. I feel like we are in such a good rhythm together these days which is a very good feeling.

Rhea has very specific preferences for all kinds of things these days...I'll try a little recap to capture some of her all time faves:

Favorite foods...blueberries, raspberries, strawberries, goat cheese, goat milk, goat yogurt, and a puzzling and near fanatical love of capers.

Favorite books...Good Dog Carl...The Wheels on the Bus...anything that features Babies on it. Just this week I received a mailing asking for a donation to an organization that helps repair cleft lips in developing countries. There were several pamphlets included which showed before pictures of babies with very severe cleft lips. Rhea just loved lose pamphlets and carried them around with her pointing and saying "babies...babies". When Bert came home from work I had to warn him not to be surprised when she showed him her "babies" as I didn't want his potential reaction to color the way she saw those pictures. It warms my heart to think that what she saw was the sweetness and "baby-ness" of those pictures instead of the "deformity" they were highlighting.

Favorite activities...going for long walks with her Mama, walking the neighborhood and stopping to smell the flowers, bike rides with her Papa and playing with Auntie Mary's cat Plika who often comes over for "kitty daycare". She loves music and dancing...just yesterday during one of our long walks she started bopping her head in tune with the music coming from someones Ipod who was walking behind us. She has quite an ear. She still loves animals of all kinds and barks at dogs in the park and tries to catch the birds with everything she has. She squeals with delight when the doorbell or the phone rings and is quite a social butterfly.

Things she could do without...hair clips/headbands/any type of contraption aimed at getting that wispy hair out of her eyes. Her reaction makes it seem as though I am actually using tacks to try and tame that hair. Attempts to take a measurement of any kind (on the wall to record her height, her feet at the shoe store, her height and weight at the pediatrician). Washing her hair might top this list. The girl does not like to be "messed with" and has a very distinct sense of personal space. But I will say that she rebounds quite well from all of these affronts and once the offending person/accessory/shampoo is out of her sight she is back to her sweet self.

All in all I continue to be astounded by the amount of wonder and beauty that is present in the minutia of the day to day...and feel honored to have this vibrant little person so enthusiastically pointing it all out for me and making sure I don't miss even the smallest bit of it.