Well, it’s official – Alyssa’s a toddler.  Although she won’t be 15 months old until later this month, she has already “proven herself” in several different ways, just this past week.  One morning, she was handing blocks to her Mommy & repeating “thank you”, in her own way, of course.  So, she’s now added “Dee-Koo” to her vocabulary!  😉 Not only that, but she is getting more active & less sleepy, day by day.  She will no longer take 2 naps for us, sadly.  This is a recent development that we were battling over, however, she won.  We gave in, because it is much simpler, now, to put her to sleep after lunch & let her have one, long nap in the afternoon.  Today is the first day we decided to do that, rather than her “old routine”, which was: breakfast, playtime, nap, lunch, play some more, nap, dinner.  We mainly had to “phase out” the 2nd nap because, according to her internal, “toddler clock”, it was no longer a time to sleep in her crib; instead, it’s a time to sing, play, yell, scream & basically just stay awake until someone realized she wasn’t going to fall asleep, no matter what we did!  Hee-hee!  But, the one nap she took  today was a three-hour one, so I guess we really can’t complain, too much…

Other than that, she has progressed even more, recently.  Sunday afternoon, at our friends’ house, she took her first, *real*, actual, unassisted steps!  About 4 or 5 of them, all by herself – from her Mommy to her Daddy!  There were several witnesses & we were all ecstatic about it, including her Big Sis, who kept trying to help her take more.  She hasn’t taken that many, since, but we are on the right track!  She seems to be getting more “brave” lately – actually trying to step out, on her own, from the couch, to someone who’s about a step or two away, although most of the “steps” she makes this way result in collapsing into either the person’s arms, or the couch cushions!  Of course, now she thinks she can do anything & has become quite the little climber, as well!  We haven’t caught her trying it with her crib yet, thankfully, but the other day, she made it out of her walker, successfully & has been attempting to escape the playpen lately, too!  So, watch out, world, here she comes!!!