A Day in the Life: January 2008

Twenty months

At 20 months, Nora's spoken vocabulary has nearly doubled! She's voicing a lot of the words she also signs now too. A lot of kids tend to stop signing at this point, since they can communicate much more reliably with their voices than before, but of course we're going to continue signing with Nora. Many (but not all) of her spoken words still need translation. Good thing I speak Nora! ;)

Signs: more, all done, please, dog, hat, milk, food/eat, music, bed/nap, play, brush teeth, push (swing), hi/bye, airplane, Daddy, me, baby, napkin/wash face, hairbrush, banana, telephone, thank you, fly (the bug), Mama, apple, up, you're welcome, book, help, tissue, wind, wash hands, camera, water, shaker (maraca), rain, glasses, I love you (the handshape), Josie, bang, hurt, cheese, wash, waffle, hot, cold, nursies, bath, snow, bird, orange, cracker, toast, full, cry, ice cream, sticker, hold, fish.

Spoken words: yes, no, Mama, Daddy/Dada, switch, fish, shoes, sock, dog, duck, now, tea, dump, chair, bang, up, Nora, Nana, belly button, baby, cat, bear, beep, yum, sister, Josie, clock, diaper, uh-oh, Auntie Emily, knee, Taylor, Sam, Papoose, whee, coaster, apple, ball, spoon, Mica, happy, banana, Abby, nursies, ring, silly, Snappi, Santa, swing, soon, sure, shower, oops, wow, yuck, yay, spin, night-night, more, bowl, help, zipper, Zoe, cheers (complete with clinking glasses!), oh man, no way, snap, help, cracker, sorry, so big, fruit, tunnel, back, lucky, whole, home, velcro, water, bib, hold, hippo, earring, balloon, wrap, ice (cream), cry, mine, markers, color, step, shelf, sticker, raisin.

Sounds: a cow-mmmmooo, a dog-woo woo, and a truck-rrrrrrrrrrarrrrrr, occasionally a motorboat-phhbbt, a bee-bzzzzzzz, a train-chooo, a cat-meeemow, a chicken-cock cock cock, a rooster-cock cock ooooooo, Santa-ho ho ho, bird-caw caw, cat-mememeoww.

She's been singing The Wheels on the Bus a LOT lately, and she even knows the tune - she'll sing each of the motions ("round and round," "beep beep beep," etc.) with just the right timing and melody! It's very cute.

Nora's starting to show some definite two-year-old behaviors. Lately a lot of things are MINE MINE MINE, and she's also started running into her room and slamming the door! Mostly she just does that when she's trying to escape a diaper change or wants to play peek a boo through the window between her room and the study.

Another milestone: she just had a real conversation on the phone! It's snowing here today, and Daddy's been out plowing since 4:15 this morning, so he wasn't home when Nora woke up. She was looking for him, and I said we could call to say hi. Usually she just listens to whoever is talking on the phone to her, and nods or smiles in response. This time, she held the phone herself, and this is the conversation:

Daddy - Hi Nora!
Nora - Hi Daddy!
Daddy - Did you have breakfast?
Nora - Yeah.
Daddy - What did you have?
Nora - (signed) Waffle. (I voiced it for her.)
Daddy - Sounds good!
Nora - Yeah.
Daddy - Ok, I have to go work.
Nora - Bye!
Daddy - Bye Nora!
Nora - Bye Daddy!

I was impressed!

Here are a couple of pictures from the other morning. You can tell Nora's concentrating on something when she sticks her tongue out a little bit!

Christmas hilarity

Nora got a small flashlight in her Christmas stocking, and as soon as she pulled out and turned it on, we all remembered how much fun it is to watch your critters chase a beam of light. Nora cracked herself up, Mica wore himself out trying to catch the light, and good times were had by all!

Josie smiles and laughs!

Josie had her two month well baby visit last week, and did great (as usual!). She weighed in at 11 lbs 8 oz and 23.5 inches long, putting her in roughly the 50th and 75th percentiles, respectively. She's developing right on track, and she's happy and healthy. As if to prove her happiness, she started laughing at us on her two month birthday!

Nora being silly

I was very impressed with Nora's stacking abilities - she was mixing up the different size rings and then stacking them biggest to smallest and then smallest to biggest - so Aaron tried to film it. Of course, then she was more into the camera than stacking!