walking our toddler

there's lots more pictures where the portrait a week photo came from.....

the other day we saw some people walking their dogs in our neighborhood.  we laughed as we passed them and the guy mentioned that their dogs weren't on a leash but our child was.  he didn't say it in a mean way it was more of a funny thing.  more often than not the leash just ends up being in the way on our neighborhood walks so we take it off.  she prefers to hold our hands anyway which is nice.

i love that i caught this look.  how dare i let go of her hand.

this was the point she was crawling around and meowing.  

then she yelled "go!" and took off....

this was when she picked up a weed and called it a tree.  she carried it for a while then she moved on to a stick that she used to sweep leaves off the sidewalk and after that a pinecone.  she was playing a game with will where he would throw or kick the pinecone down the road and when she finally caught up to it she would pick it up and throw it.  they did this over and over 

then the leaves happened.  

as i mentioned in my previous post i thought we would never get her back home once she stumbled upon this crunchy corner.  it was so cute to see how happy she was crunching through the leaves.  the tantrum when we finally tore her away...not so cute...but a sort of common thing for this 20 month old of ours.  i know it is a phase...hopefully a phase that doesn't last too long.  i've been reading about how to handle our determined girl in such situations but sometimes i just have to hold on until her roller coaster ride is over.  other times techniques i've read about seem to help.

i guess she got tired on our walk because this was when she said "nigh-night" and plopped down on the ground.

and this is what happens when we take her inside.

keeping it real and documenting all the moments. 

♥

in fact as we were on one of our walks this weekend i told will how it seems like just yesterday i was pushing the newborn ever around those streets in her stroller and now she's all about doing her own thing.  i told him next thing we know it is going to seem like a blink of the eye and she will be years older walking along with us...probably ahead of us because we aren't so cool.  we will then say.....remember when she was a toddler and flopping around on the sidewalk because she didn't want to go home.