Well, the Diva still isn’t walking yet. She’s 14 months old now, almost 15, and a week ago she actually let go by herself and took 6 or 7 steps, but now we’re back to just maybe 2 steps, if I let go of her hands. She can stand on her own for a good amount of time before toppling over though. It’s a little inconvenient that she’s not walking yet, because she’s REALLY heavy. I don’t know her exact weight (we go to the doctor next week), but I think when I checked a month or 2 ago she was 26 pounds. So my back is killing me from carrying her everywhere. I’m still calling her a baby until she walks. Once she walks, then I’ll call her a toddler. Towards the end of 13 months old, she started to blow kisses which is adorable. Around the same time, I dropped her to just one nursing session a day- right when she wakes up in the morning. And I’m very proud to say that 3 days ago, I weaned her for good! I was waiting for a good day to do it, and the other day she actually woke up in a good mood without screaming, so I figured it was the perfect time. I distracted her with some books, and she actually forgot about nursing. The next day I wasn’t so lucky. She had a major FIT. She screamed these really intense guttural sounds, kind of like she was growling, for a good 15 minutes straight, and she kept bucking around while lying on her back. I tried giving her a cup of milk and reading her a book, but she just pushed them away. Finally when she lost some steam, she sat there quietly and listened to me read to her and drank her milk. Today she woke up happy again and seemed to forget all about nursing, so YAY!

One of my favorite things she started doing at 14 months old was pointing out most of her body parts when asked: head, nose, ears, eyes, mouth, lips, hair, fingers, thumb, hand, arms, feet, legs, toes, back, and my favorites–belly button and tongue. Nothing cuter than her sticking her tongue out and going “mmmm” to show me. Yeah, that will get old when she’s a bratty little 7 year old sticking her tongue out at me and I scold her for it. Haha. She seems to understand a lot of words, but in terms of saying them, “ba” is a ball and a balloon. “Da” is dad, duck, and dog. That’s about it. But if I say a word, she usually can point it out.

She still loves music and will push buttons on her musical toys and will sway from side to side and clap her hands when she hears it. She’ll also start dancing in her car seat when she hears music. She is now tall enough to reach the keys on my piano, so I leave it open so she can walk over (technically, creep over) and play whenever she wants. She always gets a big smile when she realizes that she’s the one making the noises on the piano.

A few months ago I joined a Young Mom’s Group, and I really love it. It’s so nice to get advice, support, and adult company every now and then. Plus, I think it really helped my daughter with the separation anxiety she had in the past. She loves seeing other kids now and even if I’m taking her for a walk in the stroller, if she sees another child pass us, she’ll start waving and smiling at them. Overall she plays really well with the other kids. Sometimes she’ll hit instead of just touching, so we’re working on “gentle.” She’ll do “gentle” for a second and then back to hitting. In time, right?

Lately I’ve been going through major music/concert withdrawal. One of my best friends who moved away temporarily, will be going to a Jimmy Gnecco show next week in Austin, Texas and I wish I was with her. I’m dying for some live Jimmy right now. I’ve read his most recent diary post on his website (www.jimmygnecco.com) and he said he’s been dealing with a lot of stuff recently, and listed one of those items as his mom passing away. I knew about it already, but him saying it out loud made me think of how I’ve been really thinking about my dad a lot lately also. I really wish he could have seen my daughter (”The Diva”) crawl, cruise, & babble away like she does now. Both my dad and Jimmy’s mom died from lung cancer in November 2009. He did a benefit show awhile back to raise money for her health bills, and at a show before that, we talked a little about dealing with seeing our parents with cancer, and how much is sucks. Anyway, all that makes me feel closer to his music right now, so I’ve been listening to a lot of his solo music and Ours. I also have been addicted to a song from Lukas Rossi’s “Unreleased Demos” album, “Wherever You’re Going.” That song hits me like a brick wall and feels like he wrote it through my eyes, or hand rather. It deals with cancer, so don’t listen to it unless you want to bawl or are into that sort of thing. I’m drawn to dark, depressing stuff, so I love it. I’d love to know who inspired that song for him.

I can’t believe my daughter is already 13 months old. Craziness. At 12 months she started cruising, and can now walk “along the wall” by pressing up against it, kind of like a cop in a movie who goes outside the window of a 20-story building to try and talk a “jumper” out of jumping. You know how he presses against the wall for dear life? Yeah, that’s what she does. As for feeding, I was nursing her 3x a day, and planned to stop breastfeeding when she turned 12 months, but we’re a little delayed, which is fine. The trouble was that she would not drink cow’s milk. She spit it out and refused to open her mouth for the cup. Finally this week, after a suggestion from a friend, I mixed in some yogurt or Gerber Yogurt-Juice with the whole milk and now she drinks it. I’m thrilled because I was able to cut out her mid-day nursing and replace it with cow’s milk. So now I just nurse her when she wakes up, and right before bed. I hear these last 2 can be a pain to wean children from, so we’ll see how that goes. Once she’s off of breast milk/nursing for good, I can’t wait to drop her off at her grandma’s house to spend the night! Haha..does that sound horrible? I can’t imagine being able to sleep in, but it sounds wonderful. Today I was playing the piano and she cruised right over and started hitting the keys, so I put her on my lap and we played together. She lasted a good 5 minutes before she kept trying to tear down my sheet music. Oh well. She has a longer attention span for guitar. She loves to pluck the strings and she hasn’t broke any yet, so that’s a plus. I still think she’ll wind up a drummer though. It’s always hard to find a drummer, so we’d be thrilled.