smarty britches redux

A couple of really exciting things happened since my last post. Put simply: walking and talking. While Squirt has been working on these things for quite some time, she hasn't really mastered them. She's been babbling away since the dawn of (her) time. She had her own special word for my boobs since she was a couple months old and has started calling me "momma" around three or four months. A bit after six months, she started calling her dad "dada" and, sometimes, a crystal clear "daddy." She started standing around this time, too. It didn't take her long before she started cruising and standing independently. She'd try a step or two, but quickly decide crawling was the way to go. So she's been practicing. But it seems that she's really starting to figure this stuff out and gain the confidence she needs to master these skills.

Yesterday, Squirt's caregiver at daycare informed me that Squirt had started intentionally walking. She would cruise around the room and, instead of crawling to get from one object to another, she would walk from one object to another. It was never very many steps - just two or three - but its a giant development! One small step for Squirt, one giant developmental leap... After I took her home that evening, she walked down the hallway lightly holding one of my hands (rather than being supported by both). It was amazing, exciting, and terrifying.

Also yesterday, she continued to work on her vocabulary. While we were sitting at the dinner table enjoying our chicken scratch soup, one of our cats started scratching around in the living room. I sternly called out her name to get her to stop. Squirt turned around in her seat, smiled, waved at the cat, and, clear as a teensy bell, repeated her name. The expression on the cat's face was priceless (I'm sure mine was, too).

This morning as we walked into daycare, we played Squirt's "game." I pointed at and identified the trees, flags, and signs. After only one round of identification, Squirt correctly pointed at the different objects when I asked where they were. That alone made me almost burst with pride. But it got even better. As we walked further along the sidewalk, passing the specific objects I had identified, I asked her again, "Where's the tree?" She looked around and pointed at a different tree! I squealed gleefully and raved about how she was right and is oh, so clever.

Things are about to get really, really interesting...

You can tell her brain is working because her bottom lip is sticking out...