13 Months

I wasn't really planning on writing monthly letters past Edie's one year birthday, but now here we are at 13 months and I feel the urge to document the last month's accomplishments. So perhaps instead of a letter I'll just take a minute around the end of each month/start of the new month to write down some highlights.

Our first trip to the zoo.

You just started doing the occasional dance move. Prior to this month you seemed to enjoy music, but never showed any inclination to dance. Typically your dancing just involves some rump-bopping, but when you're really feelin' it, a little soft shoe can get worked in. My favorite is that you now dance on command!

You communicate using the sign for "more" all of the time now. Recently Grandma C was rubbing your back using a wooden mister smiley tool and when she stopped, you frantically signed to her for more. Last week week while walking around the lake with your friends we got separated from them for a minute. To show that you wanted me to catch up with them, you pointed to their strollers that were parked across the way and signed for more.

I think we can safely say that you have a few words now, although technically most of them are closer to a sound than an actual word. Your most commonly used word is definitely "dat", which means "that" and you point at everything in sight and ask, "dat?". You say "woof" every time you see or hear a dog, which means that while walking around Greenlake, you essentially spend the entire walk quietly woofing.

When you see a cat (or a cat-sized dog) you will make a hissing noise with a hard "cckk". We think this is because while visiting Grandma and Grandpa C's house last week, their cat Foss hissed at you every time you walked by him as this habit started immediately after our weekend visit to their house - so instead of "meow" you apparently think that cats say "cckkk".

You say a combination of "wow" and "woah" when shocked by something. You have sort of a weak version of "hat" and point at your head when you want to play with one of Dad's hats.
You excitedly say "cack" for cat. You occasionally say "uh oh" when you drop toys or food, although it comes out a bit more like "oh oh". Just last week you randomly started saying "buh buh" for bye bye while waving a cute (and sort of sad) like wave with just your hand opening and shutting. Last night I left for my book club and then had to run back inside quickly to grab something. When I came back in (after having just left) you were standing by the door and waving while saying "buh buh".

We bought you a tiny pink car that we push from behind this month and you L-O-V-E it. Whenever we say car, you make a vroom noise that sounds like "vvvrrr". Just this morning, I asked if you wanted to take a ride in your car and you started hyperventilating and saying "VRRRRRR" while running towards the front door. We promptly took a ride up to Cloud City Coffee while you gripped the steering wheel tightly and pointed out any crows we passed on the way.

You are still a manic little charmer, but I sense this month that another side of your personality is also making an appearance. While the more dominant side of you is excitable, fearless and outgoing, I'm also starting to see a quiet side of you. You like to play quietly by yourself while slowly turning the pages of your books and when we take you out or to other people's homes for dinner you are usually very polite and quietly curious.
Well, that's all that comes to mind from this month. I hope to post a few videos of you from this last month, which I think will help capture the developmental stage you are at right now. It seems we took more videos of you this month than photos, probably because getting you to hold still these days is like trying to wrestle a crocodile.