Nina had her 17-month birthday yesterday. Each day is so completely new with her; there are new words and tricks every day. She now has 15 teeth, with another coming sometime soon...

We were at the zoo on Saturday and were leaving, Nina walking beside me holding my hand, when she suddenly started surging forward. It took me a few seconds to realize that she was trying to catch her shadow.

Tonight we were having pasta. If you've hung out with her recently, you know that she is quite "passionate" (Elex's word) about carbs. She had colards, ground buffalo, and pasta on her tray and ate all the pasta right off. She promptly demanded "more" and I told her she could have more pasta after she ate the other stuff. She then kept saying "pasta" over and over again. It was the first time she ever said "pasta" and it was soo hard not to just give it to her. But then I looked over a minute or two later, and the tray was clean; she had understood what I said and now wanted "pasta!" More pasta it was!

We took our friend Natalie (4 years old) to the zoo the other day. We had a blast and were on our way home when Nina started demanding "crackers!" more and more frantically. I said, "No crackers, Nina" once and then tuned it out. So Natalie continued the conversation.
Nina: CRACKER!
Natalie: No crackers, Nina
Nina: CRACKER!!
Natalie: NO CRACKERS, NINA
Nina: CRACKER!!!
Natalie: NO CRACKERS, NINA!!!
Ad nauseum, I didn't even need to be there.

Granki has provided Nina with two wonderful pull toys; a turtle that clicks and a dog. One is simply not enough, Nina pulls them both around the house with her at once. It's wonderful.

Nina is getting really close to dressing herself. She can get at least one leg at a time into pants and most of a foot into socks.