Eat. More. Now!

Since Keira was about six months old, I have been working on teaching her sign language. I never thought I would be one of those moms, but I have to say it has worked wonders for eliminating some of the communication gaps between us and Keira.

I started by signing "milk," "eat/food," "more," and "all done" at each of the applicable meals or times. I then added "Mommy," and "Daddy" once she started speaking those words. Months went by without any signing from her. The books say that the child will begin understanding you at around 7 or 8 months and will start signing as early as 10 months. I would agree that Keira did understand the signs for "milk" and "eat/food" pretty quickly. However, month after month went by without any signing from her.

We went months with her grunting and groaning when she wanted more food. I would passionately sign "more" as I asked her "Do you want more?". To no avail. I thought she would never sign!

Finally in December, Keira began signing rudimentary versions of "more" and, shortly thereafter, "all done." Hallelujah! Mealtime became a much more pleasant experience.

Just last week, she added "eat" to her repertoire and refined "more" to a more precise tapping of her fingers. However, she seems to be very liberal in her signing of "eat." Either that or she is hungry ALL THE TIME!

Mommy: "Where's Daddy?"

Keira (signing): "Eat...eat...eat."

Mommy: "Where's your nose?"

Keira (signing): "Eat...eat...eat."

It very well could be hunger. If so, she's a girl after her daddy's heart.

Head, shoulders, knees and toes...

Update from a previous post, Keira now knows the following body parts:

Hair
Nose
Ears
Teeth
Tongue
Belly
Knees
Toes
Hand (sort of)
Foot (sort of)



We are currently working on learning:

Eyes
Cheeks
Mouth
Fingers

Spontaneous Walking!

Over the past week Daddy and I have caught Keira leaving one piece of furniture and taking a few steps toward her new object of interest before gracefully falling down and then crawling the rest of the way. On Tuesday I even saw her walk from the bar stool at the kitchen island over to a chair at the kitchen without falling down. At most, we have counted 10 independent steps.

Tonight Keira walked from the coffee table across the room to the foot of the two steps which would take her into the kitchen. That has to be a distance of a good 12 feet (I had Daddy measure). When she got to the steps, she "fell" down against them and crawled up the stairs to go see Daddy who was washing his hands at the kitchen sink.

I think we can officially say that Keira is walking! What do you think?

Stroller + Rollerskates = FUN!

Today Keira and I went strollerskating with one of our playgroups. We had a blast! There were just three of us moms with our babes, and we had the entire skating rink to ourselves for 2 1/2 hours. Awesome fun!

The roller rink in Manassas has a special on Thursdays for moms and their non-walking children to skate from 10 am to 12:30 pm for just $5. Plus we got to go in the moonbounce too! None of us had been rollerskating in probably 15 years or more so it was a bit like learning to ride the proverbial bike again, but we all figured it out pretty quickly.

Here are some pictures from our day. Enjoy!

We have lift off!

It's been forever since I was on, but that is only due to the fact that we were out of town for two weeks and didn't return until January 5th. Then last week we got sucked into watching a bazillion episodes of Jericho on Netflix Instant Watch and I had an entire book ("Freakonomics", I highly recommend it!) to read before last Saturday's mom's group book club! I still have photos from our trip to download to the computer so they will have to wait for another post.

I have news to report!! [drum roll please] Keira has taken her first steps. Woohoo!

Wait, am I crazy? I'm not so sure this is a good thing. Well, yes, I guess it really is.

So it all started Sunday night when I decided to see if she would stand by herself for a few seconds. She did. So Daddy and I had her walk between us. She did, from me to Daddy. Three wonderful steps!

Four days later and she is progressing pretty quickly. She took about six steps several times today. She will stand at the coffee table and walk to me when I put my arms out. And I even saw her walking away from the coffee table on her own. She had the remote control in one hand and her socks in the other hand. She took two steps and promptly fell. But I take it as good sign that she isn't afraid to venture from the safety of the coffee table. Later I even had her walking through the kitchen with my hand at her elbow instead of clutched in her death grip.

So it is possible she will be fully walking before turning 15 months old on February 1st!

The good news is my baby's growing up! The sad news is my baby's growing up! Ah well, at least I'm getting to enjoy every minute of it! (And Daddy got to be there for her first steps too!)