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There are so many little things you do every day that make me think “AH! I should write that down so I don’t forget.” Sometimes I remember to jot it down so that I can record it in here, more often I forget. Let’s see what details your Momma can remember this month.
Have I mentioned how much I love your sleep habits? It’s such a blessing to me. Thank you for being such a good sleeper. You love bed, love your naps, love your blanky. When we put you in your crib, after cuddles, you ball up your blanky by your face. Often times you roll over on your tummy and bunch up the blanket underneath you. Then you turn your hands so that your palms are face down on the bed and you rub them on your blanky. If your blanky isn’t under your hands you get really antsy and flail your arms around until you find it. That rubbing is one of of the ways soothe yourself to sleep. You point to your stereo when you feel like listening to music, or to your mobile when you want me to wind it up – lately pretty much every time I lay you down.
If you’re not quite as tired, you’ll pick up one of the books I leave in your crib for you and you lay on your back and flip through it for awhile. Or you babble to your stuffed animals.I rotate a few items in your crib every day or two to keep things interesting. You honestly love being in there. Even if your travel crib. We’re at Granny and Grandpa’s house right now and you’re sleeping in your pack and play in the same room me and Daddy sleep. In the morning when we wake up you’ll either be looking through your books quietly or just standing up looking at us over the side of the bed. No tears, no loud noises – maybe quiet, happy babbling. You’re so patient and sweet about it. You just quietly wait for us to wake up. It’s really amazing. At night, I sometimes bring y0u into bed with us. you’ll lay on top of me with your blanky and binky and cuddle. A lot of the time, you’ll even rub your hand up and down my arm, mimicking the way I rub your back. It’s so sweet. So far, it doesn’t create any issues putting you back to bed. I hope that continues to be true. It’s so nice to be able to let you cuddle in bed with us without knowing a battle is waiting for us when we try to put you back into your own bed.
It almost makes up for the new whininess we’ve been encountering during the day. Like I mentioned in a previous post, your personality is developing and you’re becoming increasingly frustrated with your inability to talk. You cry and whine quite a bit these days to try and get us to understand. It’s something I think might diminish when words start coming to you more easily. Mama, Dada, uhoh… those are still your only words. You attempt Mima (sounds like Mehmeh kind of), Papa (sounds more like Dada, but slightly different), Nana (sometimes you can say that one), and Dela (ladaladalada, reallly fast with your tongue rolling around in your mouth). Hehe…. you want to. And you’re getting closer. You can do it, baby!
Your smiles makes up for your whines too. I love your little teeth. I just LOVE your smile. It lights up my life, to be incredibly cheesy and absolutely truthful. 🙂
The people who are around you enough to see what you’re like when you’re relaxed and comfortable ALWAYS comment on how smart you are, in a surprised way, when they see your comprehension of what people are saying, movies you’re watching, books you’re looking at. You have a huge vocabulary and no words yet! That has to be frustrating for you. When we watch cartoons with you, you say “uhoh” in the right places, laugh in the right places, clap in the right places. We adults always look at each other like “how can she possible “get” that?” But you do. You’re amazing.
You’ve been kissing for a while, but sometime this month is when you figured out how to make a smacking sound – the kind of smack you would do if you were putting on lip gloss say. It’s not a pucker and smooch. It’s a smack. But it’s your version of a kiss and it’s so sweet.
You’re getting pretty good at feeding yourself with utensils. You have a real fork now, one that acutally has somewhat sharp points and you love to stab your food. Give you a dipping sauce, especially ketchup or syrup, and you will eat just about anything. But we really have to watch you and tell you to “dip, bite, chew,” or you tend to just “dip and suck.” You’re still a great eater. When you’re hungry you’ll eat just about anything – broccoli, asparagus, tomatoes, salmon. I’m sure if we let you, you’d choose hotdogs, mac and cheese, and McDonald’s cheeseburgers every time. But you generally eat what we put in front of you. And you love to share your food. Actually, you’re quite good about sharing in general.
You still refuse to drink anything but water out of a cup. Not sure what to do about. I’m going to ask the Doctor on Monday when we see him for your year and half visit. For now, I keep offering it to you every meal. You refuse to drink it. But we haven’t given you back the bottle. It’s been 3 weeks about.
You’re new favorite type of books are photo albums. You love photos in general, especially if they are of people you know. Whenever you see photos up on my computer screen, you laugh and clap your hands together. You pull the albums off the bottom shelf of the coffee table and flip through them saying “Mama” “Dadda” and smiling. It’s super cute. You point at framed photos on the wall and will start intently at them while I tell you who they are. I’m glad you like pictures, or more specifically portraits. Your Momma does too. Maybe you’ll be my little assistant someday. That sure would be fun. 🙂
And it’s not just looking at photos that you love. You like posing for them too. Hurray! At least for one or two shots. You will almost always, at least once per day, pose for me. I just better be sure I’m ready with my camera because it’s a one or two shot deal. Then, you’re done. you will sit, cross your legs, cross your arms and sometimes even smile on cue. I posted your first posed photo last month. You it regularly now.
Another funny thing you’ll do on command. Show your muscles. Really all you do is get really red in the face, grunt and squeeze your body as hard as you can. It’s hilarious. The veins on your neck actually stand out! I have to get a picture of you doing it. I’ll put that on my to do list. hehe Oh, and you also answer the question, “What does Cookie Monster say?” by shaking your head around really fast and growling. Must get that on video as well. 😀
And while we’re talking about cute and funny things you’re doing this month, you also run around with your head leading your body – always busy to get somewhere – your little feet the last part of your body to catch up to where you’ve gone. A lot of times when you’re excited – especially when we’re outside like at the park or in a new wide open place like the mall or grocery store – you’ll start toddling along slowly, then all of a sudden see something that interests you, point very determined-like, and take off like a bullet – head first – in the direction of whatever it is that caught your eye. Two second later you’ll do it again and change course. It’s super cute. You love discovering your world and you love how your little legs let you get there. I try to let you run around as much as possible I’m not one of those moms who never lets their kid out of the shopping cart or stroller. I mean, I’ll put you in there when you wear me out, but usually I’ll let you explore for a while first. You’re really well-behaved for the most part. you absolutely love jewelry and will walk around department stores breathing excitedly touching all the necklaces and bracelets in your reach. But you are very rarely rough with them, and when I tell you things are “just for looking” you almost always obey me. You’ll give it a little pat, but you don’t yank or grab. It’s very impressive and your good behavior earns you lots of free roaming time.
You have a thing about dirty hands and feet. It’s something that’s a little bit you and a little bit your Daddy’s influence. He’s always been very vigilant about wiping your hands and face during meals whereas I prefer to let you have at it and clean you up once, at the end when you’re all done. I think you prefer his method over mine and you’ve begun to sweetly demand intermittent hand wiping during the course of your meals. You don’t have issue with playing in the sand or dirt. But you do get pretty fascinated with wiping off the stuff that gets on you. Finger painting is in your near future. Looking forward to seeing how you take to it. 🙂
And you have a “stranger danger” face. Actually, you make this certain face anytime you feel shy, or sometimes when you’re feeling stubborn, like we’ve asked you to do something and you don’t want to, or maybe you just don’t understand what we’ve asked you and you feel confused. You freeze your whole body and look down or to the side. Sometimes it precedes crying. But it’s super cute anyway. Here you are doing it in Seattle when I was trying to get you to pose with the space needle and a couple of strangers made you nervous by telling you how cute you are when I was several feet away from you.
I love you so much, baby girl. You’re so interactive these days. You just get more and more fun to be around all the time. Everything is new and interesting to you. You help me appreciate life.
Amanda - That is so funny about wiping her hands and face during meals. Eric does the same thing as Craig and I’ve always just waited until the end too. I’m so behind on your blog this summer, it’s been busy!