I missed the 16th month post but visiting with friends today who have a beautiful 12-week old girl has inspired me to get to typing tonight. Yup, you forget so much and can't remember exactly when the baby milestones were hit. And so here's what's been going on with Kate recently:
- Kate is using more words than signing. She still signs here and there, there's definitely been a flip towards more words. She most certainly says "Mama," "Dada" and "DuhDuh" - okay, her word for Dill - each and every day. She will call for "Mama" or "Dada" if either of us leaves the room, and she says our names when she sees either of us on the digital picture frame she can see while she's eating her meals. Her other words are: bye, flower, frog, sock, shoe, shirt, sit, Duh duh sit, nose, eye, hair, hat, ashes (as in, "ashes, ashes, we all fall down"), ball, bag, night night, elmo, bed, no, yeah, banana, raisins, apple, up, down, fish, all done, book, row row (as in "row row the boat"). And then she does a number of animal sounds, for example, calling a cat "meow" and a horse a "neigh."
- We have been feeding Kate at the table for the last several weeks, something I now wish we had done a lot sooner. It's going a lot smoother than standing at the kitchen and watching her throw things overboard from the high chair. She's doing a lot better keeping food on her plate now that all of her options are being presented to her at the beginning of a meal. Yes, cheese is still her favorite thing, but at least the unwanted things aren't hitting the floor as much. But with improvement comes a setback...we now spend a good portion of every meal telling her not to bang the table with her fork or spoon, which dented our table. And, it took me a while before I got a great suggestion from my mom to put placemats across her entire eating area. At least now when she'd banging she's not getting a great noise effect - and there are no more new dents on the table. Since we've been sitting with Kate while she eats, she now insists that someone is always next to her at meals. If you go to empty the dishwasher or go get your phone for example, she will say "Mama sit" or "Dada sit." While it's adorable, it's also very, very strange to be told what to do by a toddler. One of those things I never imagined...
- Kate's bedtime routine is also amusing me. By her own doing, she is now practically has a zoo in her crib each night and during weekend naps. The crew she absolutely keeps track of is: Elmo, "Baa," her sheep, dog, monkey and elephant. I can only wash all of these critters when she's at daycare, and they better be dry by the time she gets home. We also purchased a spare Elmo and switch him out, but then when all the other animals got added in, I surrendered that approach. To keep the animals from leaving the house in the a.m., Chris tells Kate that they all must "take a rest" on the couch while she's at daycare. So far, she's buying it. We are doing our very best to keep the animals only at home because the day we lose one, we are in trouble. I think that we will have to bring all of her "friends" to Cape Cod at Christmas, though. Frequently, Kate insists that her friends eat breakfast with her, too. We allow them to sit on the table, but insist that they are out of reach so they do not become extra sticky and gross.
- This weekend, Kate figured out how to open door handles. So much for any privacy for Mom and Dad. And she also managed to undo a zipper. She also opens the top kitchen drawer to get her Elmo spoon.
- She is crayon obsessed! She loves to sit at her Little Tikes table to draw...well, mostly she likes to take the crayons in and out of the box. She ocassionally scribbles on the paper, but more than anything, I think she likes the box. And she likes sitting at the table. She is also putting various items on the chair and pushing it around the house. Why that is fun, I'm not quite sure.
- Tonight we asked Kate to help Chris put away the Duplo legos. Eventually she came over and put several in the box. But then she dumped out the entire box. Oh well, I guess she wasn't done playing yet! She is interested in putting books back in her shelf when we're reading at night, but she often needs help getting it back on the rack.
- She also is loving playing with her Little People house. In her version of house, lots of people go "night night" in the bed and people "sit" in the chair around the breakfast table. The also go out the door, which looks like she is throwing them on the lawn!
- I took Kate to the science center last weekend and was impressed that she could go up and down the slide by herself. You have to remind her to sit at the top of the slide, but overall, I was confident she wasn't going to fall going up the stairs of the slide.
Kate and her friends at breakfast:
We actually had a few minutes of snow flurries here today, and yesterday was the first day it was cold enough that Kate needed her hat, winter coat and mittens. Check out the big girl New Balance sneakers, too...she's no longer a baby!
Sorry I don't know how to rotate the pictures...you'll just have to turn your head:(.
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