During the next few months, her world becomes ever familiar.  Her daily or weekly routine is known; frequently visiting family and friends are easily recognized.  Her usual playtime toys are commonplace in her repertoire of fun and games.  She may include guests in her playtime, too.  Crawling or walking comes easily as she expands her boundaries more quickly than before.  She is apt to be more of a mimic of your daily routines.  Fascinated by your use of seemingly uninteresting objects, she now tries to use these same items on herself, by herself. 

At about 13 months, she is bending over or squatting to pick up objects off the floor.  She is still fascinated by emptying and refilling toy blocks and containers and continues to stack and knock down towers she has built by herself.  She may vary how she empties the container or builds those towers, separating by shapes or colors before filling buckets or erecting towers. 

Treasure hunts are a wonderful way to encourage movement:  walking, squatting or standing.  If she is still unsure about walking, perhaps a sturdy push-toy will encourage her motor skills.  Some push-toys are made with a compartment for holding her favorite toys.  When she no longer feels like walking and would rather sit and play, she can remove some of her favorite items from the compartment.  Before resuming her walk, she will have to put her toys away – a wonderfully inadvertent method of teaching her to put away her toys. 

During the next 2 and 3 months, a number of skills seems to erupt either as new or a combination of previous developments.  In the 14th month, her pincer grasp is still getting a workout with almost everything within her reach.  One reason is her desire for different textures.  She also has graduated from moving objects from one hand to the other hand to moving objects to entirely different locations.  She is also trying to dress herself, including tying her shoes.  During playtime you may notice that she may not only be mimicking others more, but also initiating games.  She continues to be constantly on the move. 

Instead of playing with the usual balls or blocks to challenge her grasping, try balls with knobby textures or blocks of varying odd shapes and sizes to satisfy her sense of touch.  Because she likes to move objects to different locations, make sure toys are big enough to be easily retrieved or big enough to avoid getting lost behind tables, sofas, or chairs.  Encourage her understanding of how t-shirts, dresses, jumpers, pants, or socks fit by helping her dress her doll or stuffed animal.

In her 15th month, she continues to mimic the actions of adults around her, especially activities around the house, like cleaning, using the telephone, cooking, and maybe even feeding her stuffed animal or doll.  She likes to pull things off shelves and can take bigger steps now.  She is drawn to objects with which she can make a great deal of noise.

Kitchen play is an ideal amusement for fostering cooperation and responsibility.   Whether it is food preparation, gardening, eating dinner, or doing the dishes, playtime with toy replicas of common items encourages proper use and understanding of everyday gadgets.  If there is room in your kitchen, consider giving her a shelf of her own to fill with kitchen toys.  When playtime is over (or when dinner is ready), she can expand her cleanup experience to include the kitchen items as well as her own toys. 

During her 16th month, she is using objects more correctly.  She inspects familiar objects more closely, too.  She has also included in her “emptying and refilling” talent the ability to push shaped objects into matching shaped holes.  Sometimes to cut corners, she may simply open the lid and drop the shaped object into the container without considering its matching cutout on one of the sides.  This is still a good sign; she understands that the shapes go inside the box, and she will eventually come across the matching hole.  During reading, she may help turn pages; and now, she can use her pincer grasp to turn one or two pages at a time, instead of flipping non-dexteritiously from the front to the back of the book.
 
To help her imagination and familiarity with putting 3-dimensional, specifically shaped objects into their matching holes, try offering one set with typical elementary shapes (circle, square, triangle, and rectangle) and another set with more complicated shapes (dog, cat, tree, or car).  To support her reading efforts, use sturdy, well-made books whose pages won’t buckle under her yet-not-so-gentle treatment.  

During the next 2 months, she continues mimicking.  She also begins to show hand preference, switching between hands for almost every activity.  Though she may show signs of being able to use both hands, she is simply still testing her choices:  right hand or left hand?  Also at about this time, she may show an inclination for riding toys.  And, the combination of putting things away and mimicking may be seen in her eagerness to help our while you clean.   

During the 18th month, she is also discovering more and more the notion of cause and effect.  She may have discovered pushing intriguing buttons on the telephone, remote control, or other audio and visual equipment.  She also still enjoys games and puzzles with hidden objects.  At around this time, she may not only continue to empty and refill containers, but she is trying to return objects to their original configuration.  

Throughout these busy months, encourage her attempts with familiar, everyday objects by playing with well made, toy replicas, especially toy telephones, toy remote controls, or toy computers.  She has learned from watching that pushing buttons results in a phone call, a different channel, or even a new song.  Her inclination is to mimic to achieve the same results you achieve.  Pushing buttons seems like a variation on the game of cause and effect:  certain actions result in certain results.  As far as all those months of emptying and refilling containers, going back to simple shaped blocks may help her achieve the goal of returning things to their original configuration.    

At the end of 18 months, she is moving more, exploring more, and making more and more sense of her environment.  She understands spatial relationships better and can help clean up, either her own toys, or – if allowed – kitchen items that she can handle.  Her efforts may not result in the perfect cleanup job, but she is learning by copying your behavior.