~ Masons ~: One step at a time...

As far as parenthood has gone, the above phrase has been used over and over, and in more than one way during this past month! It's been a great few weeks since the last post, and as always, life with a now-toddler brings something new every day.

Maelee's personality is showing more and developing more each minute, yet when Steve and I try to find words to describe it, we find it's actually quite difficult to label! She's generally pretty laid back, but can be quite determined (or should I say, demanding...)when she wants something; she can be a bit shy and clingy around new faces and situations, but then will wave and smile, excitedly saying "hi" and "yeah!" at any stranger who makes eye contact on the street; she will give us the most precious hugs, kisses, and smiles, standing in her crib while sweetly looking up at us as we pray over her and put her down for the night, and then...

Well, let's just say this "stage" in baby/toddler development of defiance, testing, and seemingly deliberate disobedience has made us both silently seethe through our teeth and want to crack up laughing at the same time! Maelee's biggest infractions are throwing her food when she either doesn't like it or is just plain bored, being the opposite of gentle either with the kitty or us, and then yelling at us when we correct her. We really wish it weren't so darn funny. We're experimenting both with the firmly-correct-it approach and ignore-it approach and the jury's still out on which is most effective with her. Fun times!

She still has a blast with her animal sounds and pronouncing (or trying to pronounce) different words and there are many now that only we'll be able to understand- for example, "bera bera," as in "strawberries." Yeah, close, right? :)

The biggest news from the 14th month was her new-found walking skills! She got pretty confident with the one-handed cruising soon after turning 13 months old and by the end of that month, was comfortably and quickly (!) pacing back and forth barely holding onto one of our fingers. Every now and then, she'd venture a step without holding on to get between furniture but pretty unintentionally. Any time she'd noticed she was standing on her own, she'd reach to hold onto something, so we were definitely expecting to have a very late walker on our hands!

Then, just days before turning 14 months old, on Father's Day in fact, she decided to take her first *intentional* steps on her very own without holding onto anything! With Nana & Pop-Pop, and mommy & cheering her on, she walked from our ottoman to her daddy- a total of 3 or 4 steps! It was pretty cute. For about the entire week after, she was still content to just do a few steps, only to fall into the arms of me or Steve, but this past week, she's started to gain quite a bit of confidence and I think we can definitely call her a walker now! She still hasn't tried outside, but is all over our apt now- let the fun begin! I was really hoping she'd be comfortable by the time we went to the beach (in another week and a half) and she may get there just yet!

Here's a link to a video of her taking one step at a time (just copy and paste into a new window):

http://vimeo.com/25847085

(password: MaeleeWalks)

Ok, enough of the updates, let's get to some pics, backtracking to just after Maelee turned 13 months old up to just over 14 months.

Some sweet pics of Maelee & friends at their "musical playdate"

Did I really once say we had a fairly "neat" eater???

Discovering the piano during a fun, week long visit to Nana & Pop-Pop's back in May

Including a special treat of seeing great Too-dad and "Nana-Nart"

Especially thrilled to see daddy after going a few days without him

Boat ride from Alexandria to the National Harbor

Some of our favorite people

Yummy lunch with 4 generations

Enjoyed another special treat during our time in VA of seeing old friends from San Diego who happened to be visiting VA and staying at a family lake house!

Another perk of our visit was enjoying a special treat of a date!

A more "official" first hair cut!
(not sure Maelee would qualify this as a "special treat" but she tolerated it quite well!)

Yummy breakfast at "Bread & Chocolate"

(Yeah, it's pretty yummy)

So much fun with Nana & Pop-Pop!

More pics from the trip to VA in this slideshow:

In the middle of June, we were also fortunate to get to see Aunt Kim as she had a conference in the city!

Fun playdate with friends (note the coordinating headbands- thanks to Jessica!)

At a very special and very beautiful wedding of friends from our church

Our "date night" included this lovely affair and a free hotel night (crazy deal that actually wasn't "too good to be true" from our credit card company) at a Fairfield Inn in Nyack. We're so thankful Nana & Pop-Pop could come up to watch our little girl- all of them had a blast...