Daddy's Home!

Lizzie's solo week with mama ended on Tuesday morning. She was, not surprisingly, ecstatic to see her Daddy. And though I miss having her all to myself, it was good to get back to the office.

It seems like Lizzie grew up even in the week Eric was away. Her language developed so much I found myself translating for a few days ("she's asking for watermelon!", or "she means that the kitty is "nice""). Lizzie also has a bunch of new tricks including spinning in circles (then getting dizzy, staggering, and usually falling down in a heap of giggles), pushing Coco around in the stroller and swing, buckling and unbuckling any and all buckles she can find, and playing airplane and helicopter with Daddy. She's very keen on roughhousing, whether it's jumping on her parents (she knows to be gentle with Mommy's tummy, but she doesn't always like it), furniture, or a pile of pillows. Perhaps my favorite new accomplishments are the animal sounds; ask her "what sound does a _______ make?" and she'll tell you. Or, "what says _____?" and you'll get a response. She's big on kitty cat, dog, cow, monkey/gorilla, owl, chicken (very funny!), and most recently, pig. We're still working on the rest.

Lizzie can sign more animals, words, feelings, and colors than we can, thanks to the new signing time videos. It's clear that the signing is advancing her spoken language too -- I speculate that this is because she can name the object, animal, or action in some way consistently with signs (which seems to be easier than vocalizing in most cases), and then she works to add a spoken word together with the sign. The sign gives her immediate ownership of the word, and then the verbal language follows naturally. We find signing incredibly useful. She has a number of words that sound very similar (nuts and nice, hello and cereal, milk and more (both sound, strangely, like "noh"), etc.) but when she signs and speaks together, her meaning is immediately clear. Perhaps our ability to repeat words clearly and correctly each time is also speeding her language along.

One final note on language. I find it telling which words she chooses to learn, and which are still not spoken. Favorite things are clearly top priority. She picked up on hummus (now evolved to "nunnus", cous cous, and watermelon (wah-moh) on first hearing them as far as I can tell. Other words, like "pick up", "put away", and "go inside" are still never spoken these many months later... hmf.

And a last brag: today I asked for the red crayon. She gave it to me without hesitation. (There were 6 to choose from.) Brilliant.

Happy 4th!