17 Months old all of a sudden

Time is flying by, and baby K is basically teenager K most of the time. She is super joyful, unstoppably energetic, wildly stubborn, and a little too clever already:) She is figuring out new skills and displays new abilities most every day. We are amazed at her strength, communication capabilities and zest for life. She has started repeating what we're saying, and to us its quite clear that she's saying words/phrases like banana "nana", potato (tato), my u doma "u doma" = we're home in Ukrainian, "all done", "bye bye", "hi", and "bai bai" for bike as she's currently obsessed with sitting in her bike seat and riding with mama and daddy around the city.

Wipe outs are fewer and further between than before, but she can really ramp up the screaming/wailing when she wants to.

She's got serious rhythm, and dances to music everyday, looking for and encouraging rounds of clapping when she's done with this routine along with other performances.

On the unfortunate side, she has cemented her claim as Princess "No", and is getting awful respiratory problems on a monthly basis. She appears to have "weak" lungs, or is just having a tough time adjusting to all of the new germs in daycare at Dina's home daycare (Heather's Family Daycare in Shaughnessy at Angus and 37th). We all suffer when she's not sleeping and poor Francis has become susceptible himself to her coughing bouts so he's contracted some nasty sicknesses as well, including a recent bacterial infection in his lungs for which he had to get antibiotics!

We went camping for the very first time on glorious Cortez Is. in early August and it was a huge challenge. Kalyna was simply hyper-stimulated by everything around her. She didn't sleep for 2 days and nights straight, and despised being zipped into her tent as she couldn't climb out. She wailed about every hour of the night and since I was sharing the tent with her the first 2 nights, I was tortured more than most in the rest of the campground; she crawled, body slammed, laughed and cried the entire night through both nights. On the third night I drew a line in the sand and we put her in her own tent and slept right beside her in ours. Wouldn't you know it? She slept the whole night less one waking around 4AM!!

Anyhow, all in all its a pretty hilarious time, if not somewhat exhausting most days. But, we love this little critter and are really enjoying watching her evolve in front of our eyes.