Last night while playing, Eliza stopped, looked at her new tricycle (which she calls a bicycle) and said:
“Mommy, my bicycle is sad.”
It took Betsy a few minutes to figure out what she meant, but she was focused on the wheel above. She then went over to the bike, patted it, and said “It’s ok bicycle, I’m right here.”
Eliza has started catching up with her playmates in terms of physical prowess. Suddenly she wants to climb onto anything and everything: stairs, chairs, boxes, computer monitors daddy leaves lying the floor. It’s a little scary.
She’s also trying to jump, which basically means she stands up on tip toes with her arms in the air and yells “jump!” Once in a while, one foot will come up off the ground.
Besides climbing, her favorite movement is stomping. She goes around yelling “Stomp Stomp!” while she does it. Also does “march march march,” which is a little disconcerting. And of course, there’s “wiggle wiggle” and “shake shake shake,” which she gets from the only TV show she watches these days, Yo Gabba Gabba.
And, she now runs like crazy. It’s amazing to hear her giggle so hard she nearly falls down as she’s getting chased by the daddy monster.
Eliza is now refusing to be carried, pushed around in a grocery cart, or anything of the sort. She can walk and so she wants to walk. Everywhere. All the time.
In the store, she started asking, “Mommy…out? Walk? Out? Walk?” So we let her lead me around, looking at all the fun things on the shelves. Her favorite is cat and dog food (with pictures of the animals on them) and bottles of shampoo and body wash that she carries around and then puts back when we ask her to do so. She LOVES leading me and Jason by the hand. If it’s too cold to go outside, we just go laps around the house, Eliza in the lead, yelling “walk! walk! walk! walk!” as we go.
She learns to say new words almost every day. This week, she added “boots” and “apple” to her vocabulary, as well as another classmate’s name, Addy. She can also say “bite,” when she wants a bite of something, which I forgot to put in the list below. Yesterday, she repeated “hummus” when I asked her if she wanted it for dinner, and she also repeated every single syllable of the phrase “cracker with cheese.” No kidding. Her best “sentence” to date has been: “Cookie …más (more in Spanish)…peese (please)”? She said this on her own, with no prompting.
The amazing thing she did yesterday: we were looking at a book, she pointed to a picture of a man, and I told her “farmer.” She immediately started singing “e-i-e-i-oh” (from the song “Old McDonald”).
Yet another story: Indiana (our dog) was in Eliza’s way the other day and I said, “Indy, go lie down. Go to bed.” Eliza looked at Indy and said “Night night!”
This kid blows my mind. She is not quite 14 months old.
Best story of the week: Betsy was in Eliza’s room with her, reading books. Our two cats, Cola and Hootie, came in to see what was going on, but we don’t usually let them in Ellie’s room. So Betsy says “Get out, cats!” and chases them out.
Eliza takes a beat, stands up, walks over to her stuffed animals. Picks up her stuffed animal cat, walks to the door, and throws it into the hall.
She’s far too smart for her own good.
For posterity’s sake, and because I love lists, and because I’m procrastinating my work…here is a list of Eliza’s current vocabulary. I think we’re up to around 40 or 50 “words.” And these are just the ones she uses consistently and with real meaning. There are other words she has said a couple of times, but I didn’t count them because they’re not in the regular rotation (yet).
People: Mommy, Daddy, Pop, Nana, Ally (friend at daycare)
Animals: cat, duck, fish, bat, bee, mouse, “Tiggy” (her fave stuffed tiger)
Objects: ball, bowl, box, hat, seat, baby (for dolls), keys
Body parts: Nose, knee
Meal time: eat, más (“more” in Spanish), cracker, cookie, cheese, juice, water (wa-wa)
Social words: Hi, bye-bye, night-night, please (“peese”), no, uh-oh, tickle, ow (for ouch)
Verbs: eat (already listed above), write, cook
Other: bath, socks, shoes, “e” (what she calls all letters)
She can also do lots of animal sounds: meow, moo, hoo hoo (owl), ssss (snake), growing for tiger/lion/monster, quack, tweet (for bird), etc.
I’ve heard her say a couple of times: bubble, Addy (another friend from daycare), jacket, tick tock (for clock), cup. Jason swears he has heard her say “music.” I think we’re heading to explosion territory where we’re going to start losing count.
Just watch this!
Oh, wait a minute:
Maybe not.
