Marilyn and I spent the day together this past Tuesday and had a ball.  She arrived as I was having breakfast and seemed quite intrigued by my clementine so I offered her a bite.  She was completely thrown by the texture and after sticking it in her mouth, it came right back out. As you can see in the picture, she was interested in the fruit, just not too sure she wanted to eat it. I peeled off the skin and gave her a little bite and she loved it! She ate almost half of the clementine.

She does not get her adventurous eating habits from her mother. We all know that Sarah is just a little bit picky about her food.  Marilyn’s  father on the other hand is much more willing to investigate new foods. Luckily Marilyn picked up her eating habits from him.

After breakfast, we played with the Valentine’s Day balloon that is somehow miraculously still floating around the house. Marilyn tries really hard to say balloon but only “ballll” comes out.  She loves to carry it around by its string and is mesmerized by the floating thing. She hits it and it floats; she pulls it down and it floats; she even throws it as far as she can, and the crazy thing floats. The balloon usually keeps her attention for a while which is helpful so that Aunt Kate to clean up the breakfast mess.

Marilyn likes to sneak into Aunt Kate’s bedroom and look for treasures to play with. She enjoys banging on the Nalgene water bottles and crinkling the Clif bar wrappers. Although more-so than that, she loves playing with Bolivar’s toys.

Marilyn and Bolivar have an indescribable friendship. Marilyn will go find one of Bolivar’s stuffed animals and initate tug-o-war with him. He plays very gently. When he gets it away from her, he brings it back and lays it right next to her until she grabs on and then they start the next round. Marilyn picks up his racquet balls and throws them for him. This game of fetch lasts a lot longer than one would assume for a 18 month old toddler and a Jack Russel Terrier. Marilyn has stepped on Bolivar while he was asleep, tugged at his ears, grabbed his stub of a tail, and yanked a bone out of his mouth - and Bolivar just turns and licks her. We are quite lucky about that…

Marilyn loves visiting Grandma & Grandpa’s house because she is the perfect height to look out the windows. She walks up to a window and signals for me to pull up the blinds as she prefers to not have to look through the blind slats. Since I enjoy indulging her, I pull up the blinds and we look outside. The back sunroom overlooks a pond - and my goodness, does she love that. Today was a big day for us. We have been working on ‘Duck’ and ‘Quack’ and lucky for us there were ducks in the pond. I would ask Marilyn, “Are there any ducks in the pond?” and she would walk over to the window to look for them. On one such visit to the window, she looked out and saw them. She started quacking. I picked her up and carried her out back so that she could hear the ducks quacking themselves. She was amazed when she heard them and just kept quacking back. It was so very cute.

One of Marilyn’s favorite activities is reading books. She is very good at identifying items in books for you. Such as, “Marilyn can you find the cat?”, then she flips through and locates the cat for you. She points to it and meows.

She received some scratch-and-sniff books for Christmas that she really likes. I was really surprised at how quickly she picked up the concept of the book. Scratch a place in the book, put the book to your face and breathe in. I have been able to use this concept when I want her to smell something. I pretend to scratch the item, such as an orange, and hold it up to her noise and she breathes in.

Well she has really taken to pictures as well. She likes identifying the people in the pictures for you. There is a collage of Uncle Brett and Aunt Kate on the wall by the kitchen table which she discovered last week. She walks over to it and just stares at it. Then she points to people when you say their names.

Marilyn mimics those around her, as many children do. Apparently the people around Miss Marilyn enjoy talking on the phone. For a few months now, Marilyn ‘talks’ on her phone. She has many play phones but other toys work as well, as does her hand. I thought using her hand as a phone was a little strange until I saw her mommy talking on the phone. Sarah’s cell phone is so small, that it looks like she is talking on her hand. Marilyn puts her hand or her phone up to her ear and then starts talking. “Hi! Hello!” she starts. She then starts jabbering away. These calls sometime last several minutes (as her mommy’s calls do too). She is just hilarious.

Marilyn likes to wave ‘Bye-Bye’ as people leave. She blows kisses and waves to people from the front door. She also likes to keep watch on Bolivar when he goes outside to go potty. She can be found at this little side window next to the front door numerous times a day checking to see if Uncle Brett is coming to surprise her or if her Mommy is here to pick her up.

Nothing is safe anymore. Nothing is out of the reach of these little hands. Here she reaches for the water bottle on top of Aunt Kate’s bed. Nothing is too far for Miss Marilyn. She is tall for her age. After all, her daddy is almost six and a half feet tall and height runs on that side of the family. She is growing into such a big girl. And much quicker than realized or even thought possible.

Happy 18 month Birthday, Marilyn Jane!

The time has flown by and you have amazed us so many times.

We love you, little one.