Finley Mae - The 13th Month

Here is our 13 month old. She's busy, funny, feisty and curious.

She has been running all around and has now mastered the stairs both up and down (yikes!) and has a great grasp of words. This week she began speaking a whole bunch of "B" words which include: book, bird, ball, bath and her all time favorite "bye-bye!" She also says: Hi there, mommy, daddy, ceesus (for Cecil) , meow, woof - woof, horse, up, down, oh there are MORE I'm sure....like "weeeee" is her word for a swing! She also has sound FX for other things. She sees the car key, the car, the vacuum and the coffee grinder and says bruuuum.

She is signing like a mad woman too which is so awesome. She really works hard to tell us things and ask for things using her signs. Of course her two favorite signs are 1) Cookie and 2) MORE closely followed by signing cookie again. Her signs include: potty, dog, cat, bird, fish, play, more, cookie, food, drink, all done, night- night, brush teeth, bath, sit, shoes, socks, and we are working on please and banana. Although I'm finding the please and thank you hard to translate as you cannot assign an object to it like most of the other words so I'll keep using them and she'll catch on. It's amazing to watch her figure language out. I say the words and sign as I speak and sometime 3 weeks later she just uses the sign in proper context and it then becomes habit. I'm just waiting for her to drop the f-bomb.

She is also insane over music. She asks for us to put the radio on and she dances better than I do. I am SO going to be teaching her the ROBOT very very soon!

As for me - I'm absolutely loving her at this age. What age have I not said that at? But seriously, I have a little playmate now. She entertains me and herself. She is helpful and likes to sort laundry and unload the dishwasher and throw things in the garbage can. I have to check the garbage cans around the house. Lately they are filled with her cups, plates, cars and my hair brush and a pair of my false eyelashes in their plastic case. Yeah - nice! Note to self: push things deep onto the counter top as she is reaching and stealing anything within her grasp!

Finley has been sleeping through the night ever since we weaned her. WHICH ROCKS! It gives me an evening to do stuff I can't do during the day, like prep meals (ha-ha Steve is on nights - I make salads), vacuum, read a book, sit with my feet up! When she's awake I am full on watching her. She is really into hiding and climbing. (I'll save that for another post) So I have to have an eyeball on her at all times.

She loves to read books and we have read Clifford's Big Red Easter and Carl the Dog EVERY NIGHT for the last two months (I wish I was kidding). She is dog obsessed. I take her to see the dogs the Humane Society bring to Pet Smart on Adoption day and you would think I gave a random stranger a million dollars - she gets SO excited. Sometimes we stop into watch the dogs being groomed. She loves it! After our visit there today she began telling her dad all about it when she saw him. Her little arms were waving and she was talking jibberish intertwined with the car sound and the dogs sounds. SO cute!

Sometimes I just watch her play independently, she gives her doll a kiss or tells a whole story to her self. In the following photo she is playing with a great big Gerbera Daisy. She's looking back at the dog who is always near by.

Also, she had just gotten into the FOLDED laundry basket and skattered my clean under wear all over the dining room. I had to carefully crop them out of this photo. Cuz, NO-ONE needs to see my gitch.