A wee one grows and grows...

Over the last few weeks I've really enjoyed seeing Allison turn into this amazing little communicating person full of laughter, smiles, glares, and temper. It's really a beautiful thing. It was until the last few days that I've really realized how much she's grown up. There's no explaining what a relief a simple nod or shake of the head can be when trying to talk to an 18-month old. Since Allison has learned 'yes' and 'no' getting her what she needs and wants is a much simpler process. She will now ask with the sign for please and most often I don't have to remind her how to 'say it nice'. Her chuckle is really coming into its own as well. She LOVES to laugh and smile and if I'm tickling her and I stop she signs frantically for 'MORE!!'

One of Allison (and Sarah's) favorite FAVORITE games to play is our chasing monster game upstairs. If you have been to our house you know the hallway is open to the living room and runs the length around three sides of the inside of the house. It's long and has some corners to hide behind. So I chase the girls back and forth on my knees roaring at them. They laugh and laugh and laugh and I gasp and wheeze and try to catch my breath after repeated attacks. We've taken to piling all the pillows and blankets from my room into the end corner of the hallway and they both run and plunge into the pillows. If I capture them at the end of the hall they get an all out tickle fest. Allison could do this all day. Sarah could do this all week.

And with the amazing sweetness comes a hilarious (right now anyway, ask me in five or ten years) spit-fire, stubborn, ornery attitude. She can glare like it's no body's business. My mom commented that it is exactly my glare. So it's tough to know if she's learned it in her short 17-months watching her mother or if she's just born with the ability to charm people with her angry-eyes.

Allison is a hit first, throw things on the floor second, then crumple on the floor in a sad mess third...then later if I'm still talking she listens...LAST. It's a beautiful relationship I must say. She tests my patience most times but in the best ways possible. And most of the time she comes back from her fits with no hard feelings, so I compel myself to do the same.

There is no sweeter thing that watching Sarah and Allison play together. They are partners in crime, mermaid-sisters at bath time, moral support at dinner time when neither likes what they're eating, and smooch-a-gooch exchangers at nap and bed time.