Opal at 14 Months

The biggest change Opal made this past month is that she is now walking!  It is so adorable to watch, and she has such a proud look on her face as she walks around on legs that look way too short to be doing such a thing.

Fortunately, she still lets me hold her.  Here she is below holding an object she can name, "Ball!"

 Opal also says, "uh oh!", "thank you", "again", and "bear".  We've also heard her attempt to say each of her sister's names, which of course, made them even more devoted to her.

Opal also says, "Draw" and gets a kick out of scribbling with pen or crayon on paper.  

She is starting to sleep better after overcoming two huge set back this month - another round of the stomach flu, and getting four molars.  When the stomach bug hit our house again, this time even more furious than the last, I officially went crazy.  The budget was thrown out the window as I bought a can of Lysol wipes for each room of the house, two new sets of toothbrushes (for every member of the family in both our upstairs and downstairs bathrooms) and several boxes of latex gloves.  The kids were under strict instructions to keep all toothbrushes out of the bathroom, and to apply toothpaste to their brush with a clean q-tip so as to not pass on germs.  Later that night, after my new sanitary rules were in place, I realized that one of my kids had set the table for all three meals with dishes from a dirty dishwasher.  You could have knocked me over with a feather.  Needless to say, everyone came down with the bug a second time (minus Violet and I, who didn't catch either bug and are now calling it our Super Power).  The toughest part of the entire ordeal was that it slowly went through our house again, and lasted for over two weeks between when the first person got it to the last person finished with it.

I'm almost giddy with gratitude that Opal is back to a sleep routine.  The other night I thought that she wasn't ready for bed with her sisters since she had taken a late nap.  After tucking in her sisters, I headed downstairs with Opal.  After I sat down on the couch with her, prepared for a late night, she took me by the hand and led me upstairs and to bed!  God bless you child is all I had to say, as Will was working late that night and I was in need of a break.

She loves books, blankets and bears.  She also loves putting on Lucy's old fashion glasses and making us laugh.

 What a squishy, adorable little baby she is!

 Opal, you are a goof, and we love our sweet and sassy little girl!