Smartie pants

I'm happy to report that sometime within the past few weeks, something has seemed to click in Annie's brain and she's just totally understanding things lately! A few weeks ago, before I went to San Diego, I was seriously freaking out - like to the point where I was crying and practically signing Annie up for speech therapy already because she wasn't really communicating at all. As you may have guessed, I have some issues with anxiety and worry, and REALLLLLLLLY need to take a chill pill sometimes. Let this be YET ANOTHER lesson to me to just CFO (chill the F out) because Annie is fine, we are doing all the "right" things, and if there IS a problem, we will deal with that when the time comes! There is a reason that children have so many well-child checks, and I'll just have to try to keep calm in between those until I have an "official" put my mind at ease :) (for other anxious parents, I found this article helpful but also made me more anxious when I started to read more on the site about that topic, so read at your own risk :)

Unrelated to this post, but we had a great time at Nathan's first birthday party yesterday!

I was worried because Annie doesn't really point, doesn't wave with any regularity, wasn't saying any words, stopped signing all done, and just in general seemed crankier. I'm not sure what happened (maybe being away from her psycho mom for a weekend did her good?? Who knows) but right before I went to San Diego, she FINALLY signed all done again (she stopped shortly after her birthday). She now signs that, but usually only after we say it. She also started signing "more" just a few days ago, without me even showing her the sign again. That one is SO cute :) Just yesterday I asked if she wanted more chicken pot pie (she was shoveling it in her face with wild abandon) and she dropped what she was holding and very delicately touched her fingers together - yay!

Annie and I spent quite a long time alternating rocking her baby doll the other night - she's a good baby mama :)

In the last week, she's started saying "bye bye" reliably and in context, without prompting, so I have made the decision to count that as her first word. It still sounds like "buh buh", but close enough. It's funny that I never realized just how subjective first words are - I thought it would just be obvious, but it's really not! Annie SAYS a lot of things that SOUND like words, and sometimes they are in context, but until I can understand it and it's clear that she's not just mimicking, I don't want to count them. She says "hi" pretty consistently, too, so maybe that one counts as well.

Some pretty amazing things that Annie has done lately... last week, I was singing "she'll be comin' round the mountain" while prepping dinner or something, and while Annie was emptying the tupperware drawer. She stopped her work, looked at me and then looked over at the fridge where her Fridge Farm toy was, and went over to it and pushed the button to start it, where it sings that same song. Whoa..... she's actually paying attention I guess! She did that again yesterday, AND she actually put 2 appropriate pieces together in the toy! If anyone else has that toy, you know the annoying "Wow! You made a match, way to go..." song that it sings - I was so proud that SHE actually DID make a match this time :) I know it could have been an accident, but whatever :)

Yeah, I know she's probably too big for this tub but I like that we don't have to use so much water - AND can get hilarious photos like this - seriously just cracks me up each time I look at it!

Sometime this weekend, I was sitting on the floor with Annie and she was playing with something - I said a random sentence from one of her books, and she crawled over to the bookshelf, found that particular book among the many that were there, and brought it over to me. You may recall that I was concerned awhile ago that Annie didn't like reading - lately she really has started bringing us books more and more, and actually listening to them. Yeah, the ones she brings are like 5 pages long, but it's a start :)

Annie also just realized last night that she can push things and move along with them. Due to this realization, she pushed a little basket and knee walked along with it (ouch) around the house seriously about 5 times. I took a thrilling video of one of her laps, and I'm certain she would have done more if we didn't make her go to bed.

She also really seems to be understand that her body parts are.... there... I guess :) Whenever she sees her belly button, she pushes it in (it's an outie now due to her large pot belly) and is always trying to put things on her feet. Her Grandpa was putting random doll clothes on her feet (?!) when he came over on Saturday, and all day on Sunday she was grabbing those clothes and trying to get them on her feet herself. Whenever she has a sock she diligently attempts to put it on herself - no success yet, but not for lack of trying :)

No real "progress" on walking other than the pushing things around - she really only stands on her own when tricked, but I have seen more moves to try to get to standing on her own, without pulling up on something. I know Sue (daycare) and her Grandpa K. will be THRILLED when she achieves this milestone ;) I do have to admit, that I am surprised it is taking her this long - she was a fairly early crawler (7-8 months or so) but I guess on the milestone chart, walking is a 15 month milestone now, so I think that is pretty accurate if I had to make a prediction for when she'll really be a walker. She has taken steps here and there but immediately sits back down. I do see that she has a real confidence in her own abilities though. She's really steady and has a good command of her movements (except when she tries to sit in chairs backwards) so maybe once she DOES walk she will be pretty steady. Time will tell!