The girl has become quite the little independent one.  When I drop her off at school, she screams (and I mean SCREAMS) if you try to carry her in instead of letting her walk.  She also insists on carrying her tiffin by herself.  Once I tried to help her by holding her tiffin as she clambered up the step into school.  She promptly sat down and began to wail until I handed her back the lunchbox.  She then placed it neatly on top of the step, struggled a bit to climb up, then picked up her tiffin and continued to toddle along.  This easily adds a good fifteen minutes to drop off in the morning, but there’s no way around it.

It’s pretty cool how capable she is, and rather tough, too, at least for an 18 month old.  Even with a faceplant off the slide, she picks herself right back up again, dusts herself off, and is ready to go: