Eleanor is 17 months old!

Eleanor is 17 months old today! She's still in the "say and do the cutest things" stage of her life, and keeps her mommy and daddy laughing all the time!

Here's what else she's doing:

• Learning how to move in new ways. She turns around and around in a circle for as long you say, "Turn around, turn around..."(or until she falls down!) She's also a fan of "hopping", though her feet never leave the floor.
• Counting to ten. She likes to count while she's playing in her room, so this is what I hear, "One, twoooo, beee, bor, byyyy, six, beben, eight, nine, TEN!"
• Reading more and more words every day. She reads about 40 or so now.
• Obsessing over all things Elmo. She sometimes wakes up in the morning talking about Elmo. She also plops herself down in front of the TV, and says, "Elmo...bibeo...peease." Who could resist that? She sings the Elmo song. (Gotta get that on video.) And always says, "Hi, Dorty," when she sees Elmo's goldfish Dorothy.
• Learning to use good manners. She often wows cashiers with her sweet little, "Tant-tu" as we're leaving.
• And finally...understanding the art of bribery when Mommy wants to take her picture. For the photos below, I was bribing her to keep that hat on with these mini-Alphabit cookies. The first two times, I said, "If you want a cookie, you need to keep your hat on." By the third time, she signed "more" and quickly put her hat back on. Such a train-able age!