Leah's ability to communicate continues to grow. She babbles a lot, but new words are coming out every day. Each night as I'm bringing Leah to her room for bedtime, Daddy says, "Goodnight, Leah!" and Leah will wave to him and say, "Bye! Bye!" The other night she gave an obvious attempt at "Goodnight!" back to him. Her favorite word continues to be "kittycat" and she frequently uses the sign language for "please" accompanied by the word and some desperate eyes. Besides that, she regularly uses the words mama, dada, bye, light, bubble, fishie, shoes, done, yeah, no, mine, doggy, pee pee, poo poo, uh oh, tree, baby, nose, eye, book, ball, hot, and probably a couple more that I'm missing.
Leah continues to be very observant and helpful. I'm pretty sure she knows where all of my dishes go at this point. One day I was emptying the dishwasher and she picked up the noodle strainer and then pointed to the top of the refridgerator where it goes. I was pretty shocked. She likes to clean up trash and will run and put anything you ask into the trash can. She really likes being helpful and will run and grab things like your shoes or phone if you ask her. She got a 4 wheeler Powerwheels for her Grandma and Grandpa S as an early Christmas present this year and she absolutely insisted that she help.
Leah still loves getting in the fridge, but her new favorite place to cause trouble is in my top pull-out drawers in the kitchen. She slides the dinette chairs up to the counter and spends several minutes pulling everything out of my silverware drawer or junk drawer. Her favorite time to do this is while I'm preparing dinner. Nothing in those drawers or on the counter is safe now. One night daddy left the manicotti pan out on the stove and Leah had a second saucy dinner.
During the winter, I usually like to light candles in the house to make it feel more cozy. Leah really enjoys watching you light the match to light the candle. She blows out the match each time and shoos the smoke away with her hand afterwards. We had to move the location of the candle and the matches because she is so obsessed with them!
At nursery in church, Leah has picked up even more songs, but her absolute favorite one is, "The Wheels on the Bus." She will start rolling her hands immediately upon hearing the first part of the tune. She also like to do the part where the mommy says, "Shh!" She will also do all of the motions for "If you're happy and you know it!" She has developed a little bit of separation anxiety when I bring her to nursery. I used to just be able to drop her off, but now she usually wants me to put together puzzles with her and then I wait for her to be distracted to sneak out. Just last week, I gave her hand to one of the nursery leaders that was walking in and she didn't even realize I was gone. We'll see if I can be that successfully sneaky again or if she'll catch on.
We are lucky enough to have lots of little friends for Leah to play during a weekly playgroup we are a part of in our small town. Leah loves playing with other kids even though she has an initial warm up period of about 10-15 minutes when she arrives at some place new. All the other kids in the group are older except for the recent addition of a newborn and Leah has learned some new play skills from her older friends. She has started doing some make-believe play with her toys. She was "microwaving" food at a play kitchen for a little boy at playgroup. She likes to fill up cups with the faucet on her play kitchen as well. She also has a little doll baby that she sits on a play potty to go to the bathroom. She can play independently longer now, but she still prefers to have a buddy to play with. She doesn't like to play alone and I'm pretty sure that's why she always keeps me company while I cook dinner. She also like to pretend that she's mommy by walking around in my shoes. (The red pair is her favorite!)
Drawing continues to be one of Leah's favorite things to do. She likes to have you trace her hand or draw an animal. (A kittycat is her usual request.) Surprisingly, she actually holds her pencil correctly. Her drawing is only scribbling, but she makes likes and circles and likes to color in my drawings. She doesn't like drawing with thicker writing utensils and prefers a pen or pencil to a thick crayon. She draws pretty often with chalk on her easel in the front room as well.
Leah loves to read books before bedtime... But NOT with mommy! I can only get her to sit on my lap for a few minutes while I read her favorite book, "The Little Mouse, the Red Ripe Strawberry, and the Big Hungry Bear." Each night during her "independent reading time," she pulls out the books one at a time, opens up each one, points to the words saying, "eeh, wah, tee" or some other three syllable nonsense words, and then closes the book - starting immediately on the next one. Some nights she forms a pile of perfectly lined up books and other nights they are scattered everywhere.
Leah has started to watch a little television and likes to play with my iPad and smartphone. She has a little game Talking Tom that she loves to play with and another one where she takes care of a virtual kitten. She also likes to watch animated cartoons on an app called PBS Kids. She only likes the music in the beginning of the shows and barely gets past the opening credits before switching to another show. She can turn on both devices and navigate to her games. She loves to take pictures of herself and will say, "Cheeeee" whenever she opens the camera on my phone or iPad.
After Thanksgiving, we set up our tree and a small HO scale train that some friends gave us. Leah was initially afraid of the train, but she warned up to it rather quickly. Daddy has taught her how to pump her arm and say, "woo woooo!" She can turn on and off the train on her own, but usually likes to get mommy or daddy to play with her.
We've had an unseasonably warm start to winter and on Veterans days we were able to go for a jog along a canal path nearby. Leah really loves being outside and is rather content even if I'm pushing her in the jogging stroller. The temperature dropped for a few days and we got a couple inches of snow which Leah really enjoyed.
I love this little girl!
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