Words - 15 months

Roo,

Your speech is picking up now. You saw Cat (--At), Hot (--Ot), Bubba, Daddy, Momma, bath and are mimicking just about every word we say. You insist on feeding yourself with your spoon already and do a relatively good job with thick liquids like applesauce, soup, cottage cheese. So far you are left-handed.

You’ll wave bye-bye and will say “hi” when someone says it to you. You are doing this funny thing when I ask if you’re hungry or thirsty. You’ll growl. Like a grunt/growl and it’s to the point where if you are hungry/thirsty you’ll do that to basically tell me.

Surprises are fun to watch because you do the mouth-wide-open like a “gasp” but you’ll do it when you know something is going to sound funny or at a expected surprise. Speed is nothing – you are running everywhere now and will even go down/up stairs and steps with total grace. You will go to grab my hand if it’s there but if it’s not you seem to make it up/down.

BALL is your favorite word right now and love the basketball. You’ll walk around and throw it down – anything round (eggs, tomato, grapes, apples) are balls. You just cut your 10th tooth - top right molar. Strawberry-blonde is what your hair color is and very curly in the back. After the bath is when it's at it's peak "curlieness".

Tooth #9

Roo,

I know, another nickname? Yes. I honestly don't think we ever had this many nicknames with Maysen. But you don't seem to mind and come willingly (sometimes) when you're called by various names.

You cracked the surface with your 9th tooth yesterday. It's your top-left molar. You have been cranky and throwing your fingers in your mouth. A couple weeks ago I noticed a bruise back there so figured it was on it's way. You have bruised your gums a couple of times when teething.

Your new word is "Ball". You even say the "L" of ball. And you LOVE balls. Right now you love picking up and tossing the ball, even a full-sized basketball. You'll do this for hours. It makes you happy.

You still dance whenever you hear music. Even a whistle. You have started doing a whistle-like sound of your own. It's like this singing but the pitch goes up and down erratically really fast. And you're starting to be really ornery to your brother. Don't get me wrong, he's had it coming to him! But if you're mad at him you'll go behind him and pull his hair, or scratch him and yell. It's kind of quite funny ... Shh ... don't tell.

14 months

We got home from your 2nd real trip to the beach on Sunday. You had a great time and showed us another thing you are fearless of and that is the water waves. You kept walking straight for them, oblivious to their strength. Bubba actually got caught in a wave and I had to save him from it, getting knocked in the water too. It was frightening for a mom to come that close to danger with her babies. Luckily daddy had you. We rented Isabella Cottage and stayed 4 days.

While we were there you enjoyed "peek-a-boo" with your brother in their cabinet. You'd crash the door open and just giggle when Bubba got pretend-scared. You loved it!!

You are doing great things now. You almost demand to hold the spoon yourself and you want to feed yourself. Today you actually picked up cottage cheese on your spoon and fed yourself almost the whole bowl. Then today you also said "Ball". Your first real word. I mean, for awhile now you'd say "Momomomomoma" when you'd be mad or upset. Or you say Dada at random. But I said "get your ball" and you did and came back and looked right at me, trying really hard and said "Ba - l". So fun to watch. You have such control over this wooden duck you have to push and you push it just right to where it stands up and walks. I always say "quack, quack, quack" and you try to mimic me. You understand "dog" and will say "da!" for dog, and you have started to correlate Bubba = Maysen and are saying Bubba for Mase's name. So fun.

You have figured out "nose, eyes, forehead" because while at the cottage you bumped my nose with your finger for a certain sound, and so on for the various other body parts. So smart!!

Before we left town we took you guys to the Devil's Lake park. What a playground they have! Of course you just wanted to get wet and you did! You had a great time.

Right now you're walking with this big boodah belly. You stick it out and puff your chest out while you walk like you're hot stuff. Bubba will chase you and you just try to run so fast into my (safe) arms and you get so excited.

We love you, little Roo.