Eleanor hits 17 months

Eleanor turned 17 months old this week, and we marked the occasion with our usual family photo, although this time we had an extra addition :) Henry had a good week – he is staying awake a bit more than last week, and we have started playing with him on his jungle playmat. So far no interest in any of the creatures hanging above him – but all in good time. Eleanor had quite a week of achievements – for starters, she is now able to open any of the interior doors at will, which has made keeping her content in a single room a bit more complicated. It also means that you have to be sure to lock the door when you go to the bathroom. She also had a number of yogurt related achievements, the first being that she can now say yogurt – or really just “gert”, but it means yogurt, and she loves to say it after you say “Yooooooooo”. She also ate an entire serving of yogurt with an adult sized metal spoon. She initially wanted nothing to do with that yogurt snack that afternoon, but once she got the spoon in her hand, she was off to the races. We had a bit of snow on Monday, and when Eleanor looked out the window at the snow, she kept saying “Ut oh”. I’m not sure if she was referring to the fallen snow that had covered the ground white, or to the snowflakes that were currently falling, but either way it was pretty cute. Later in the week, she was watching me play with the cat using the feather toy, and suddenly she was interested in playing with it. It is not the first time she has been interested in one of the cat’s toys, but this time, instead of playing with it herself, she wanted to play with the cat! She first started by gently waving it back and forth, and let out some great giggles when the cat responded by batting at the toy. After that encouragement, she now picks up the feather toy and runs at the cat until she hits the cat in the head with it. Amazingly, the cat sometimes plays back with her, but most of the time she just ignores the toy and walks away.  We wrapped up the week with a visit from Grandma and Grandpa, who swung through for some quick Eleanor and Henry time.