my grown up girl at eighteen months...already

Leah is officially 18 months old this week, which essentially means 3 things around here:

1 - we snuck her into nursery 3 days early on Sunday. More on that below...
2 - she needs another doctor's appointment for a well baby check up (and if I was a good mom, I would have already made the appointment...)
3 - Leah has to bid farewell to an old friend - the binky. She only gets this sucker at night and at naptimes, so we'll see how traumatic the parting is. I'll let you know. Keep your fingers crossed for me. If you know us, you know how important (some might say extremely vital) sleep is at our house.

With her very mature age, Leah has also graduated to the honor of wearing pigtails in her hair. I like to think it helps to hide the baby mullet (or "bullet", as its known in some circles) that she's still sporting. At least it's an excuse to put hairbows in her hair. And sometimes she even lets them stay a while before she pulls them out.

I think Leah has been practicing her dance moves for the camera - this shot is at the end of a little hop and arm shake move. I really can't believe how big she has gotten lately. While I was extremely relieved and excited to be able to drop her off at nursery on Sunday, I pulled one of those crazy mom moves in sacrament meeting. Get a load of this: I started to remember back to about three weeks ago (or was it 17 months ago...it feels like just a few weeks) when we were there at church for her baby blessing. I'm so embarassed to admit (no one mention this to Michael, who thankfully does not read out blog generally) that I had to blink back the tears so Michael wouldn't see. I can imagine the water works that will come when I have to take her to kindergarten. Anyway, long story short, Leah did great in nursery. I dropped her off and she didn't even look back. At the end of church when I went to pick her up she was much too busy watching some of the nursery leaders blow bubbles to worry about her mom there to pick her up. I had to call her name like 6 times and then walk right up to her to get her attention. Seriously. Such a relief that she was good. I'd hate to be fighting a battle every Sunday. On the other hand, does she have to grow up so very fast? Time flies when you're an adult...