Tuesday, June 2, 2009

Ruth Update

Ruth is really walking now. And trying to run. She's getting her first set of molars, a painful process for her and us (teething makes her a grumperina).

Besides the gross motor skills, she's developing her fine mother control. She can hold a pencil and scribble, a little. She likes her stacking toy (my sister got her this one) and putting things into/pulling things out of bags/containers. We haven't seen her stack blocks yet but she likes to put lids on her bottles.

She is talking quite a bit for a 13-month-old too. So far, she says mama or ma-mee, dada or da-dee, baby, kiii (kitty), key (and once even tried to put them in the door lock while I was holding her), bal (ball, but shorter sound than the actual word), ba or ba-ba (bottle, usually with pointing), fou-wah (flower), kah (car), hi (with wave), buh-bye (with wave, also will say it unprompted if you walk her to the front door), shh (shoe), and oh (if she drops something). Once or twice we've heard something that might be "tree" but it isn't reliable.

If you hand her something, sometimes she says something like "taa ooo," which we hope is thank-you. We've made it a point to say "please, thank-you," and "you're welcome" where appropriate in the hopes that she'll start mimicking us.

She really likes books. Last night after dinner, she sat on the floor with us and kept handing us book after book. Her attention span varies from really excellent for her age to "Next page! Next page! Next page!" Eric Carle continues to be a hit, as does Sandra Boyton and anything that comes with pop-up, lift-up or pull out.