Noises & Expressions

From her trademark "Oooooo," she has moved on to a multitude of noises. She coughs like a consumptive Garbo (for attention), screeches like a teradactyl (for food), growls like a tiger (for daddy), and then there's that sound one makes by sustaining a note and using your finger to vibrate your lips (bububububububub) -- except she uses the back of her hand or sometimes sticks her finger IN her mouth, to the same effect. That noise she does for the neighborhood girls, who taught her the trick. They also deserve credit for "Uh Oh," which debuted at 9 or 10 months but hasn't been heard much since 11 months.

She giggles if you blow on her hair. She laughs when she pats her tummy, or yours. She will sing if you sing (warm-up scales). She enjoys zipping and unzipping things. She likes to feed the dogs food from their bowl one kibble at a time (and splashing in their water).

She plays piano, guitar, dances and bebops to any tune, even the "hold" muzak on the telephone. She chortles if you squeal when she bites you. She still grabs my glasses off my face (she's been doing that since we got her), and if I put them up on my head, she pulls my hair to get me to lower my head. She has quite a grip and we have to keep her nails trimmed in self-defense.

Out: Vavavava, Mamamama, Bababababa
In: Dah! (the perennial favorite, dog, which she uses for Reese), Ta (Talley, the other dog), Cah (for Skotty, the neighbor dog), MamMam and Ma (for the grandmothers), Yeah!, Ha (Hi), Guhgah (Good girl, with a British accent courtesy of Donna from England), Uh (Up), and "oh!" -- she has said that for months, accompanied by a brief look of joyful surprise.

We are hoping she branches out in to other vowels in the coming months, such as the very useful "ee" and equally useful "i."

She enjoys looking in her training potty every 4 seconds to see if she's produced anything, and just today reached back to flush it. In case we forget some day, she has always known what to do on the potty. The only impediment we had to potty training was first, getting her to crawl (and walk) so she could get to the potty. The next will be clothing -- they just don't make pull-up diapers in so small a size! (She still doesn't crack 20 lbs so we have the car seat in the rear-facing position.)

Since her first birthday, she has been doing a lot of walking. She will still drop and crawl periodically but her walking has been more frequent. She walks like a penguin or a chafed cowpoke after one too many sarsparillas. She races up the stairs and is doing a pretty good job of reversing the action to get down, although it requires a lot of spotting by her climbing partner.

She no longer kisses like the dogs (licks) but I am sure she is studying them for tips and other tricks.