14 months old

Yesterday, Haley turned 14 months old. She continues to amaze me and she gets smarter every day. Her "vocabulary" is improving daily. She can say (or attempt to say) more words than I can list. I love that I can understand what she is trying to say these days. I would have to translate her words to a normal person, but I know what she's saying. She makes me laugh constantly and I cherish every moment I have with her. We always have a blast together!

It started raining/pouring yesterday while we were outside playing. I started to take her inside, but I wanted her to see the rain first. I let her down to see what she would do. She walked out in it and I thought for sure that she would run back to me. Instead, she stayed out there. She loved it and stayed out in it forever. She was drenched by the time I forced her to go inside. I wish I could feel that free.

Playing with the water from the downspout.

Today, we tried to play in the sprinkler. I thought that after playing in the rain yesterday and loving it so much that she would love it. No such luck! She didn't care for it at all. I was really hoping this would be another fun way to beat the heat. We'll just have to keep trying until she understands that it is fun.

I did get her to enjoy her swing, though. For the last few months, she has refused to swing at the playground or in the swing that she got for her birthday. Today she really liked it! I'm so glad because everyone knows how fun it is to swing. I even got on the swing beside her and she seemed to love it that we could swing together. At one point, I thought she was going to fall asleep in her swing. I just had to keep hosing her off to keep her cool. It was very HOT today! Now she points to her swing and says "swee". I think it's a combo word for swing and wee because I kept saying "wee, wee" as we were swinging. She also loved the slide on the swing set. I hosed it down too because the plastic was getting hot in the sun. I helped her slide over and over until I was just too tired to do it anymore. She SCREAMED when I made her go inside.

This afternoon, I broke out the sidewalk chalk. Scott has been dying to do this with her, but I was in need of something new to do outside after she had a major breakdown, so I pulled it out. She got excited at first, but didn't really understand what it was all about. She tried a few times to draw, but kept getting distracted by cars which she calls "beep beeps". After trying to play with the chalk for a few minutes, she decided that it was more fun to throw it on the driveway and watch it roll. I then had to put it away.

Here she is trying to bring me a dead flower that she found. She is very excited to have found such a treasure. I probably should have let her keep the chalk. (Please excuse her bloomers. The elastic is broken in them so they were falling off.)