L.O.V.E

Hazel is at The Cutest Age Ever, and I know I’ve said that every month since she was 4 months old, but this time I really, truly mean it and would like to lock it in as my final answer. (I actually started writing this when she was 15 months old, but it applies more to 16 months. 16 months is my absolute final answer.) Here’s a list of 10 random facts, things I love, and tidbits I’d like to remember about Hazel at this age:

ONE
Hazel walks over to trees, lifts up her dress or top, and pretends to wee. She thinks she’s hilarious. Unless she’s growing molars (in which case she clings to either Alan or me like a koala and wails if you even think about putting her down), it’s very easy to make her smile. She seems to find life quite amusing and fun. She regularly makes us all laugh.

TWO
She loves picking flowers, particularly dandelions.

THREE
Hazel likes being helpful. She stands outside the shower and then pulls down my towel and passes it to me as I step out. (It feels a little bit like having a tiny servant, i.e. wonderful.) She takes rubbish to the bin and cleans up after herself; one day while I was lying on the floor, she lifted my shirt and blew a raspberry on my tummy, then she toddled quickly to the kitchen, grabbed a tissue, toddled back, and wiped her slobber off me. 

FOUR
When Hazel’s hurt Moses or me, I ask her to say sorry, and she gives us a kiss. She will also offer kisses whenever you ask for them, and is the best little cuddler in the world (her little arms around my neck and her head resting on my chest or shoulder is the most precious feeling ever). When we’re sitting down, she likes running up and tackling us to the floor. She does this to Mo, too, although that often ends in tears.

FIVE
I am her favourite parent. Except when Alan’s around; then I’m her second favourite parent.

SIX
Hazel has a thing with shoes. She likes wearing shoes, and she likes other people to be wearing shoes. At all times. The first thing she does upon waking is go to her wardrobe and choose her shoes. She then brings the chosen pair to you, turns around, reverses into your lap, and sticks her feet out. She lets you know she wants to keep them on rather than switching to another pair by yelling and kicking and squirming when you try to take her shoes off. She is very good at communicating without words.

Although she has four pairs of shoes (thanks for the hand-me-downs, Hannah/Aunty Jill), she will wear only two of them. They don’t match all of her outfits, but she does not care about colour coordination, she only cares that the chosen shoes are on her feet, and that the chosen shoes stay on her feet. At all times. She’s been known to cry as if she’s being attacked when actually she is merely watching one of us removing our shoes. Her barefoot-loving parents have already made her question whether or not she is in fact adopted. She regularly fetches our thongs for us and then stands there, holding them out to us and looking hopeful, until we feel bad and put them on. It’s possible this love for shod feet developed after repeatedly stepping on Lego. It’s also possible it’s hereditary; apparently her paternal grandmother totally relates. 

She also likes wearing other peoples’ shoes...

... which doesn’t always end well.

SEVEN
Hazel can say these words: ball, baby, bubble, bird, boo, bath, bowl, ow, door, more, mummy (pronounced “mummeeeee”), daddy (pronounced “daddeeeeeee”), and Mo. The ‘b’ words all sound very similar. She says ‘door’ when she’s in a cupboard or the shower, and wants us to shut her inside (she especially loves standing in the shower with the door closed. Even before she could walk she was fascinated by the shower). Moses says he can understand everything she says, but all of his interpreting skills bizarrely evaporate at times (“Really? That screaming meant she didn’t want me to wrench the toy from her hand? I totally didn’t get that.”). Hazel has just started pointing to pictures in books when we ask her to find them, and she sometimes says something that sounds a lot like “woof” when we ask her what a dog says.

EIGHT
Hazel is confident. She walks around like she owns the joint. Yesterday we were at a carols service, and she wandered among the families around us, patting and befriending people. She’d return to us with food that she’d been given. 

NINE
Hazel can now walk up and down stairs by holding the balusters (the vertical stick things that lead up to the banister; I googled it) and a parent’s hand (Mo always offers his, and she always rejects him). She seems particularly determined to master the stairs.

 

TEN
Hazel is growing up far too quickly.