Our Bear - 15 months

Charly's new nickname is "Bear" for no real reason that I know of (see Chuck's edit at bottom), but sometimes we also refer to her as "Clifford." Do you know the story of Clifford the Big Red Dog? He was the runt of the litter, then a little girl named Emily Elizabeth, loved him so much and prayed that he would grow. Then in a day he grew, and grew until he became the BIG red dog. That's a little how we feel about Charly.

She was just a little bitty thing that we were so worried about and now she is just growing and growing. She can also pound down some food. She puts a death grip on her high chair tray when I try to take her out when she wants more food. She wants anything and everything that anyone in sight is eating, which is why another nickname for her is "Mooch." She still only has 2 teeth, but she can gum anything you put in front of her. Her top two barely poked through this weekend.

We love our little Charly Bear - big or small. She is in such a cute stage, but she also has quite the personality. She holds a grudge if you do something she's not a fan of. She will look at you with this scowl and grunt at you. It's hard not to laugh. It's usually when I tell her, "No!," so I have to try hard to stand my ground and not laugh. I would love to catch it on camera.

This summer, Charly's favorite places were the splash pads at Stony Point Fashion Park. She would crawl right to the middle with no fear. Other kids and parents would point and laugh. Since she would crawl all over the place, I had to always make sure she was wearing pants even though it was the dead of summer.

Charly loves to help unload the dishwasher, even if they are dirty. We put all of our kids dishes on a bottom shelf, so the girls can reach their own stuff. Charly will actually put bowls and cups away.

One afternoon, she found a box of chocolate sandwich cookies. She was quite proud of herself. Look closely and you can see the chocolate smeared all over the oven.

She's taking steps with her walker, which is awesome. I think she's finally realized that maybe walking could be fun. She turns everything into a walker - doll strollers, the clothes hamper, step stools, boxes, pretty much anything she can lean on and moves. This video is from a few weeks ago, she is much more stable now.

15 month stats:
weight - 22 lbs : 25^th percentile
height - 29 ½ in : 50^th percentile

Her growth chart looked something like this:

Chuck's background on "Bear": I am not quite certain when I started calling her "Charly Bear." When she was little and had her tummy issues, she would cry in pain lots and loved to cuddle and fall asleep in my arms. She really liked it when I would pull her close so she could feel my breath on her cheek. There were a few times that I fell asleep with her by doing deep calming breaths on her cheek for so long. It was then that I began calling her my "Charly Bear" because she was just like a teddy bear that was so nice to cuddle and fall asleep with. Plus, she never grew bigger for 8 months, so that was like a stuffed teddy bear, too.

Once I started calling her that, I always thought of my uncle Mike Bodell who always calls Jared, his third child, "Bear," which led us all to call him "Jare Bear." Growing up, I always knew that Mike's kids were so important to him and to this day, I enjoy hearing him say "Bear" to his son. So, after using it more and more frequently, Charly has become "Bear."