With everything we've been doing, I haven't even had a chance to blog about what Keira is up to now. So I thought I would catch up with all the new things she is doing at 16 1/2 months old!
Walking: Keira has been officially walking full-time now for almost a month. She is really doing well indoors. Last week the weather got nice so we have started walking with her more outdoors. She had a little tumble at the park yesterday, but she's okay and only had a little scrape on her forehead. As Ryan put it "She ate dirt." She is unable to get into a standing position on her own, so she is still crawling over to objects to pull herself up. But she is definitely doing well with her mobility. One of her favorite activities is to have Mommy or Daddy chase her around the kitchen island trying to get her to tickle her. Her giggle is such an infectious sound!
Weight: We went to the doctor's last Tuesday, the 17th as follow-up after an ear infection. She weighed in at 27.8 lbs with her clothes on. Um, that's huge. She is definitely heavy so I think it was good timing for her to begin walking!
Body Parts (update from
this post): Hand, foot, cheeks, chin, and fingers.
Sign Language: Food/eat, more, all done, milk, please, bath, baby, monkey, cracker, and bird.
Talking: At her 15 month checkup, I
reported that "Keira says three words (Mama, Dada, tickle), maybe a fourth (kitty)." Now she is talking all the time, a lot of which I don't yet understand. Those words that I do understand are:
Mommy ("Ma ma")
Daddy ("Da da")
tickle ("tickle")
baby ("baby")
ball ("bah")
Cheerios ("joos")
kitty ("ki-ee")
meow ("ow")
doggy ("Do-ee")
Grandpa ("Pa pa")
chirp ("Beep")
hi! ("hi!")
Just yesterday, Keira was pinching her fingers together and saying "beep" "beep" "beep" while we were looking at the characters/animals on her Sesame Street placemat. I'm unsure what she is trying to say so I ask her. She points to a pigeon on the placemat. It finally dawns on me that she is signing "bird" and telling me what the bird says. We have a small bird at home and I always say "peep" "peep" "peep" when signing bird as that is what our bird sounds like. So cute!
She loves to talk on her cell phone and will hold it up to her ear and say "Hi" and then jibber jabber as if she is talking to someone.
I'm working a lot with her on the sounds that animals make and she has three down now. I'm also working on teaching her different foods that she likes, either by trying to teach her how to say the word or do the sign (or both if I know how to sign it).
Other cool things: Just this week, Keira can now complete two wooden knob puzzles without assistance! She can do a five-piece shapes puzzle and a four-piece animal puzzle (well, there is a fifth animal, but she refuses to put the bunny piece back).
This weekend we listened to a lot of music. Previously she was starting to make the motions for "Itsy, Bitsy Spider" and would clap during "If You're Happy and You Know It". Now, she will also stomp her feet and wiggle her ears during the latter song! She learned both of those pretty quickly when she saw Mommy and Daddy doing them.
It is absolutely amazing how quickly she learns new things. She learns new words almost every day and understands what the objects or actions are. She loves to copy what other people are doing. My trick to get her to try something new is for me or Daddy to do it first. Then we ask her to do it and generally she will. That is what prompted the "pull toy parade" last night. She and Daddy walked around and around the kitchen island for probably 20 minutes last night, each of them pulling a pull toy behind them. It was adorable.
Not so cool things: So along with the cool things, the not so cool things of toddlerhood are beginning to shown their horns. Keira is definitely getting a mind of her own. For example, when walking, she sometimes wants to walk in the direction
she wants to walk in, not the one Mommy wants her to walk in. So with this mind of her own, she has started throwing some tantrums. Sometimes when she doesn't get her way, she will throw herself to the ground and put her head between her legs to the floor and cry. She did it the other day in the middle of Lowe's. So I just left her there and started walking away. I stopped and turned to ask her if she wanted to get up and come with me. She stopped crying, and let me help her up and we walked our way back to the car without incident. Not so adorable, but luckily not happening too often so I'm not going insane yet.
She started freaking out about us leaving her in the bed, so we left the lights on and had her lay down while I read a book to her three or four times, then I let her "read" the book. We did this for about 30 minutes. She started looking really sleepy, so it was time to turn off the room light with the hall light on. After a few minutes of that, it was time for Daddy to leave the room and turn off the hall light. I sat next to her bed on the floor and soothed her for a minute or so telling her it was okay and I was there. Then I just stopped touching her and sat there for about 15 minutes until I thought she was out. I army crawled out of the room and shut the door. Success so far, just hope she sleeps through the night. Crossing my fingers!!
Funny quote from the evening: Me to Ryan: "Let's not show her how to get in and out of the bed, and maybe she won't run all over the room." Two seconds after we move the bed back up against the wall, Keira is climbing in the bed to check it out. LOL! Um, yeah, so much for not showing her how to get in and out.
She's just so darn cute!
