Recently....

Just a few observations of things that Meghan is doing recently. She's been amazing us with how quickly she is gaining new skills!!

• She waves bye-bye. We have a routine of saying bye to Daddy at the garage door. The other morning she was hard at play so he kissed her and said bye-bye while she was in the play room and then left. As soon as she heard the door close, she started crying and crawling as fast as she could to the garage door. Once we opened it and waved bye-bye to Daddy all was well and she went on about her morning. 
• She is following simple directions, like: Go to Daddy. or Get your ball. 
• She says "mama" or "mom" when she wants me or needs something. 
• She says "Dada" but never to him - only to the garage door while he is gone. 
• She says "ball". She really likes her big basket full of balls! 
• She doesn't stack very accurately yet, but she knows that toys like blocks and tobbles are for stacking and tries very hard! 
• She loves to read stories. She will listen to me read 10-20 at a time sometimes! When she looks at books by herself she "reads aloud". The teacher in me LOVES that!! 
• When she's fussy, she almost always stops and switches to giggling/dancing for music.
• She says "mmmm" after bites of favorite foods. 
• She says "vmmm" when playing with her cars. 
• She loves pointing at things she finds interesting. She loves when we label objects for her. 
• She has been sleeping in a bit the past two weeks. Since she has to have her reflux medicine at scheduled times, I have had to wake her up quite a few times. I think the teenage years with this one are going to be fun - when I enter her room and whisper her name she will pop her head up, say "mama", and drop it back onto the mattress. When I try to pick her up, she curls in a ball and tries to bury into the mattress. When I do manage to get her up, she is dead weight, and refuses to lift her head off my shoulders....it is so funny! And then after a few minutes of warming up, she is all smiles!!
• If you hand her the rings for her ring stacker she can put them on 60% of the time. She knows what needs to happen and tries so hard. 
• When she sees something she wants, thinks she might get it, and then doesn't - she throws a little temper tantrum! 
• Her top two teeth finally came through - they are so cute!! 
• When you hand her a baby doll she says "aw", cuddles it, and usually gives it a kiss! 
• She has started giving people kisses - always on her terms - but they are wide-mouthed, sloppy, and absolutely wonderful! 
• She has a toy piano in her toy basket near the laundry room - she plays it and "sings" while I fold laundry! 
• When she's playing and you ask her "Do you want to go bye-bye?" she immediately smiles, claps, and crawls after you. She giggles, waves, dances, and claps while you put your shoes on. She absolutely lights up when you enter the garage - she is such a wonderful errand runner. 
• She has conquered her fear of the vacuum - part of the way we helped her with this was by clapping and cheering for her the whole time we ran the vacuum. Now, whenever she sees it she claps. We hope she will outgrow this by college :)