Brielle is 19 months old!

Our sweet little daughter is 19 months old! And she is still sweet...We realize that at any moment she could hit the "terrible 2s" and start saying "no" to everything. But for now, she still loves to say "yes" (or rather, "dah" with a head nod).

She is becoming more independent, and insistent, though. She still grabs our fingers to drag us to the door handles so she can go into the next room. When she wants to nurse, she leads me to her pillow "donut" saying in a clear voice, "Dup!" as she nods her head. And she does get fussy at times when things are kept out of her reach or she doesn't get to explore where she wants to go. Luckily it's usually a short cry, sometimes with a "drama drop", then she's okay again.
Brielle continues to be a very physical and strong baby. She seems to have endless energy when she wants to do something, like climbing the stairs, climbing onto a table, or climbing over Mommy and Daddy. Let me note that she's not necessarily allowed to do some of this climbing...but she still tries. She stands up on chairs and her toys, and in response we make a hand gesture with a finger pointed down and say, "get down!". Unfortunately, she's taken to imitating us, and now as soon as she stands up on a chair she immediately smiles and gleefully makes the hand gesture for "get down". As parents, we have to keep a serious face, but it's so cute that it's really difficult! Brielle still loves being swung through the air by Daddy.
I think the most difficult challenge this month is that Brielle has developed an emotional attachment and is very sensitive to being away from Mommy and Daddy. It used to be that when I dropped her off at school she was so interested in the toys and other kids that she couldn't care less that I was leaving. When I'd picked her up, she'd glance up at me like, "oh...hi...". However, now when I drop her off she clings onto my legs or my neck and cries when I try to walk out the door. When I return to get her she runs across the room to grab me with open arms. It's sweet, but we definitely feel more guilt now when we're not with her.
Brielle's language skills continue to develop. We hear new (real) words all the time, along with full sentences that we can't yet understand. It's particularly cute when she voices two-syllable words, like shampoo ("am-POO"), uh oh, and bye-bye. She pronounces each syllable so deliberately.
The final thing we've noticed this past month is a lot more pretend play with her toys. She's having a real baby phase and loves to carry around her two baby dolls - she feeds them, tucks them into bed, and makes them do other activities like trying out the temperature of the bath water and putting forbidden objects in their mouths to see if it's allowed. Brielle is still really drawn to animals as well. She loves playing with her animal toys and has a keen eye for spotting any animal image, whether it's a poster in a store, an image online, or even a roughly-drawn animal cartoon character on TV. Luckily she's pretty amused with her animal toys because we'd like to hold off a bit longer before actually getting her a pet...Soon she'll actually have the language to start asking for one...