Dear Kennerly,
You are one day shy of being 16 months old. You are saying all kinds of words, stringing chains of signs together to convey your wants or needs (or demands!) and running EVERYwhere. You have one speed, GO!
Just within the past few weeks you started pointing at things and saying what they are or what you want from them. The most frequent are "go, go" when you climb onto your wheelie zebra and want a push, then "ball" and "car," which you say slowly twice at a time, "ball.....ball" "car....car." You say names, like Nanny and Poppa and Mommy and Daddy and for the first time this weekend you said, "Coco" for Cohen! That was very exciting!
If it isn't words for objects or people you're saying, it's sounds, before we even get to the playroom, as soon as we're headed in that direction you start making the sound for an elephant and putting your arm up as the trunk. You know your elephant lives in the playroom with his circus tent. The minute we get down there, you walk over to him, pat him on the head and make your elephant sound and trunk movement. You also sometimes wave to him when we leave.
The first animal noise you ever made was a cat, mostly because you just call Tiger "Mau" for meow. You were pretty young when you started doing that. Not long after was "oo oo" for "woof woof" but then that was pretty much it for animals for a while. After a hiatus from animal noises, you jumped right back in with the elephant, a bunny ("hop hop hop") a giraffe (looooong neck and you stretch that little neck up as far as your can..actually you have toppled over a few times straining that neck of yours!) an octopus, a snake (which is the cutest because you make this little face and spread your lips out like you're making a big fake smile and make the "ssss" noise in the back of your throat.) Sometimes you will make an animal noise when I don't think there's even one around. You are smarter than mommy. One day at the store, you started saying, "hoo hoo" over and over and I said, "yes, good that's what an owl says but I don't see an owl baby, there are no owls here." You just kept right on "hoo hoo"-ing and I finally realized there's a small stuffed owl on your shopping cart cover. I said, "oh! Owl!! that's right! there is your owl!" Smart little lady:)
For a cow for a while you would just purse your lips together to make an "m" but not make any sound. I could see the wheels turning in that little brain, and I would point and say, "Cow, Mmmoooo, that's right, go ahead and say Mmmmoooo." Last weekend, you finally made the sound come out after making that little M face!
We're still working on chicken, crocodile and others. You kinda have a monkey down. You point at the zebra and look at me in question, but I'm not sure I know what a zebra says...Fiona tried to clear that one up for us, but to be honest I'm still not sure;)
You walk SO fast, everywhere you go. You must get there quickly. You stomp your feet too, a loud little walker for such a tiny thing. You hug your teddy bears, give kisses to your baby doll, dip your snack in Tiger's water bowl, throw yourself onto the floor to have a fit, open and close doors, get into EVERYthing, throw piles of laundry around the room, put every article of clothing you can find on your head, pull an ENTIRE toiler paper roll all over the bathroom or whatever room you can reach it to before it breaks, you grab Tiger's tail and hold on tight as he runs away. You still love reading books, and most of all taking every book off it's shelf. You cannot get enough of the outdoors. The moment we get downstairs in the morning you point to the door and ask to play outside.
If you manage to stay somewhat clean all day long, it's usually inevitable that you ruin our "not a bath night" with one swoop of avocado all over your head at dinner, smashing it in an ear or nostril and mashing it in your hair. This is probably because you love bath time. Any water time really. You still enjoy swim class and are getting so (a little TOO) brave with wandering around the floating mats on your own.
You clean up when we sing the cleanup song from music class. I was shocked when I saw this for the first time. You actually picked up a toy, brought it to the toy bin, and dropped it in. Then, you went back, picked up ANOTHER toy and placed that in the bin as well. WHAT?! Mommy mind blown.
You say "night night" and sometimes something that sounds like "I love you." I tell myself everyday to put it in your baby book, I make notes in my phone so I know exactly when you are doing what. Then I walk past your baby books a hundred times and do nothing with it. I put you to bed and sit down for the first time all day. I glance over and see it on the shelf and can't bring myself to walk the 5 steps to get it and write in it.
Well, the computer is closer and blogging is easier than fitting all of this into a tiny space set aside for "first word ______________________" in the book.
Along with all of these fun things (and, yes I included the face-to-the-floor tantrum a fun thing because sometimes it just makes me laugh,) you also have some new teeth. Molars to be exact. And I think I hate them. Top two have broken through. "They" say once the tooth breaks through, the worst should be over. Hey, "YOU" shut it. "They" know nothing. "They" can suck it. "They" can come over and sleep (read: not sleep) at my house for a week while these sharp little white things from hell make their way through my daughter's gum line. One breaks through, the "worst" for that may be over, but there's always another right under the surface. Leaving red, swollen, puffy sad baby gums.
Okay, maybe teething should be it's own blog post...alas, you are amazing baby girl and sleeping or not, I love you more than words:)
