C. is 15 months old now, and she is emerging from my least favorite stage of early childhood - late infancy - into one of my favorites - toddlerhood. With all four of my children, I have found the stage between about 6-13 months to be the most frustrating period for me as a mother, and for them as wee humans. At that stage, they remained sort of crabby much of the time because they couldn't really DO much of anything, despite an increasing awareness that the world offers many interesting things to do. They could pull up, or crawl, but what they really wanted to do was run around and play with their older siblings and cousins. And between about 6-15 months, my babies have all obviously had a lot to say, but have had trouble getting anyone to understand them clearly. It must be irritating beyond belief for them, which must be why all of mine have whined quite a bit during the stage from which Miss C. is now happily emerging.
Charlotte (with her cousin Nancy Catherine) shedding angry tears at about seven months at the thought of being forced to endure the dreaded tummy time. She wanted so much to crawl, but could only flail her arms and kick her legs in hysterics at this point. She would scream if we put her on her tummy, and scream if we took her off her tummy. She just didn't know what she wanted.
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