I woke up this morning to the sound of laughing. I thought maybe Erin had gotten the girls up and come back to bed as he sometimes does. But when I got up, Daniella was still in her crib and Elise was playing with her. They've been playing together since. I love it!

I don't like to wish the time away with my girls but when it comes to Daniella, I must confess I've been wanting her to talk for quite some time. Like all toddlers, she gets frustrated she is quite vocal about it! It would sure be great if we could know what's going on in her mind.

Well, now Daniella is 18 months old...well...by the time I'm writing this post she's nearly 19 months but I'm pleading "super busy with moving" as my excuse this time.

At her 18 month check up we discovered that she is gaining some ground on her growing project. She is now 21.5 pounds (9.8 kg) which puts her in the 13th percentile for her age.

Her hair got lighter and lighter over the summer and people keep asking where she got the strawberry blonde? Apparently I had hair that color when I was wee too and my sister Jackie was the blonde sheep of our family until she was a teenager. My mum's hair has red in it and Erin has red hair from his grandmother Flemming. Who knows how long it will be that color but it sure is lovely for now. Her hair is so soft and curly too I just want to touch it all the time when she's near but she usually gets a bit fed up with me before I've had my fill.

So far she is still my little blue eyed suzy so it's likely that she will stay on the blued-eyed team (Colin, D, Nadine and I) to help us defeat the brown-eyeds (Erin, Mavis, Elise and Shaun) in all future clan Dalzell competitions although it may be that the card playing gene is attached to the brown eyes so she may be doomed when it comes to Hearts. I've heard of eyes changing to brown as late as age two so we'll still have to see I guess.

She is quite the monkey but I don't think she's as much trouble as people had me believing she would be. She has a very good nature a great sense of humour, determination and she knows what she wants so I think she is going to be a force to be reckoned with if we can keep her energy pointed in the right direction--she is very much like her Auntie Jackie in many ways.

She well exceeded the 18 month milestone of saying 6 words and I am sorry I haven't posted about this before because she learns new words every days so already I can't remember which were her very first. Here is my best recollection:

• yeah
• bye!
• Ees or Esie (Elise)
• Danda (Grandad)
• Nana
• Mam-ma (Grandma)
• Bampa (Grandpa)
• bapack (Backpack--Ahhh Dora)
• Du-dut (Duck)
• Bop (stop and also pop when there is toast involved)
• Mimo (her bunny)
• ditty (kitty which she said first pointing to a kitty on Elise's pjs)
• up
• bupabuv (up above)

Now she tries just about every word we ask her to so she's gaining vocabulary all the time.

Daniella has a great sense of humour. She makes Elise laugh all the time and quickly discovered it was a way to get Elise to play with her. She's also getting cuddlier which I love. She loves to read and watch tv but especially In the Night Garden (weirdest show ever but the girls LOVE it) and King George and the Duckie (Du-Dut). She also sings and I just have to tell you that there is a silly song in the middle of all the Veggie Tales movies and she particularly likes Barbara Manatee that she sings along with managing to get out Dadadeeeeeee for Manatee and Bupabaaaaa for Up above. It would take way to long to type it out so I did take a video of her singing it and I'll post it soon. It's just a riot!

My favourite thing she is doing right now is when I come in if I've been out in the evening when I walk in the door she calls out Mamaaaaaa! and runs and gets my pajamas for me. It's awesome! The other thing she does is when I'm cooking or something in the kitchen and she wants up she grabs my pant legs and physically turns me (like I said, determined) so I can't ignore her...not that I could, the little monkey!

I had a melancholy moment waking up the other day and realizing that very soon Daniella would not be crawling anymore. She's been learning to walk now for almost a month and as of yesterday she prefers walking to crawling. She's getting pretty speedy too. The change in her the last week has been amazing to watch. If you have children who aren't walking yet, be sure to pay attention to their face when they do start walking. I'm not talking about the inevitable proud smile that says "hey look at me!" but something changes behind their eyes. I think it's at this moment when they realize they aren't a baby anymore and, sadly, so do you.

Daniella took her first tentative steps today without holding on to anything. She's been cruising the furniture, and climbing for a while and even took a few steps holding onto a wagon a few weeks ago but today she was all "look mama no hands!" and took a couple of steps to Grandma and then about 5 steps to me later in the day. I remember being so excited when Elise did it and thought it wouldn't hold the same excitement the second time around but it does...oh it does! Way to go Sunny D!

If you want your kids to play with a certain toy, begin tidying it up.