The Talking Tally, January 2009

Katie is quickly becoming a little talker. In the last few weeks, her vocabulary has grown immensely, and now she is trying to say almost every word she hears regularly. It's quite amazing. I've been trying to write down as many words as possible over the last several days, although I'm sure I'm still missing some. But here are most of the words she can currently say.

Fictional shows and characters: "See-see" or "Elmo Cookie?" (when she wants to watch Sesame Street), Abby (one of the newer characters on Sesame Street), Elmo, Cookie (Cookie Monster), "Buh buh" or "Boo-ard" (Big Bird), "Book" (Bert), Pooh, "Teh-tale" (Veggie Tales)

Real people:
Family: Bella, Dada, Mommy, Mike (my brother), "Aah-ee" (her cousin Alli), "Ah-drew" (her cousin Andrew), "Ama" (Oma, formerly known as Grammy) , “me!”
Friends: Mark, Anna, Kai, Amy
"Whooz dat?" (used for everyone else)

Animals: Bee, "Coggy" (Doggie), Cow, Puppy (and countless animal noises and motions to indicate the others)

Eating: "mawk" (milk), juice, apple, "balla" (banana), "cocker" (cracker), cookie, chip, cheese, "ah gah" (all gone)

Clothes: coat, sock, shoe, diaper, hat

Parts of the Body: eye, nose, "mock" (mouth), toe, "eyebow" (eyebrow)

Toys and Fun: ball, beach, book, Bible, "baa" (Bath), bead, "bubbles!" (always said with an exclamation point), "boon" (balloon), car, hug, "Whoa whoa whoa" [Row, Row, Row (Your Boat)],"tock" (asking us to make her toy talk), see

Other Words and Phrases:
Hi, hello, bye
Happy, sad
Up, down
Hot, cold
"Peas" (please), "dank doo" (thank you)
Yes, no
Amen
walk
"s*it" (directing Bella to sit) (and yes, I did get a good shock then chuckle out of that one)
two
"pah-ee" (potty -- I wish being able to say it made potty training happen automatically!)
yellow (learned this week when she wanted another M&M)
baby (important to learn right now!)
"sah" (star)
"lat" (light) "Whoa" and "Wow" (learned while admiring Christmas lights)
"Where's... (da cow, Bella, etc.)?"
"Es dat... (Elmo, Dada, etc.)?"

Over two months ago, when Katie was just starting her vocabulary drive, she learned "beach" and "happy" in the same weekend -- a great pair of words, I might say! Here she is practicing her new words in the car on the way to the ocean:

Our First Tiny Talk Tuesday

This is my first shot at Tiny Talk Tuesday, a blog event my friend Mary started to record the funny things her kids say every week. Since Katie's saying more and more words all the time, I decided it was time to join in!

Full sentences Katie (age 16 months) has said:

"She says moo." (response to the question "What does the cow say?")

"Whazdat?" and "Whoozdat?" (she asks this of everything she does not know the name of -- she is one curious child!)

"Bad Bella!!" (she says this constantly, whether or not our dog Bella is being bad and sometimes when Bella is miles away from us) (she also says this when trying to say "banana")

"It's a Bella" and "It's a baby." See video below as she marvels over the little plastic babies that I got as part of a twin baby shower favor.

Other words she says on her own now, besides the ones I mentioned in July:

"Shoe"
"Eye"
"No" (for both "no" and "nose")
"Mow" (for "mouth")
"Yes"
"Cookie" (for both "cookie" and "Cookie Monster")
"Wheeeee!"
"Bella" (she calls all dogs "Bella" now)
"Dank you!"
"Ow ow ow!" (as she hits Mommy -- we'll have to work on curbing that one)

Animal Noises she's improved upon:

Cow -- "Mooooo" (it's the first animal noise that she's really mastered in terms of both inflection and pronunciation)

Elephant -- "Brbrbrbrbrbrb!" (High-pitched motorcycle noise while she lifts her arm like a trunk -- it actually is the best elephant noise I've heard a child make)

Chicken -- "bak bak" (refers both to the animal and to the food. At least twice a week I have to go through the drive-thru, and all I have to do is ask Katie if she wants some "bak bak" -- chicken nuggets -- and I have one happy little girl)

Wolf -- "HOOOO-oooo!" as she points her mouth up to the sky

Tiny Talk example of the week: The word "Wheeeee!"

Katie's just learned the expression "wheeeee!" We use it when pushing her around the room on her fire truck or when pushing her in the swing or when going down the slide.

She had never used it in observation before, but we were watching a classic Sesame Street segment of gibbons swinging from rung to rung in a zoo. Since gibbons are similar to monkeys, I expected Katie to start making her monkey noise "Ay yi yi yi" (see this post to find out why that's the noise a monkey makes). Instead, as the gibbon swung from rung to rung, Katie started cheering it on: "Wheee! Wheee! Wheee!"

And tonight I was checking email while Katie was absorbed in watching Sesame Street behind me. Suddenly I heard her saying "wheeee!" and there were no gibbons swinging this time. She had climbed up on the coffeetable, and was using her "wheeee" to describe the adventure she was having. Note to self: Listen carefully for "wheee"s whenever Katie's out of sight. :-)

Gorillas and Elephants and Monkeys, Oh My!

My brother Jason and his family were visiting the National Zoo last week, so Katie and I decided to join them! We invited along several good friends: my future sister-in-law Lindsey; my friend Sara and her son (and Katie's BFF) Daniel; and my friend Kim.

We had a wonderful afternoon! Katie loved seeing her cousins again after a whole week had gone by since the beach trip. Here Katie and her cousin Ali greet each other like old friends:

Katie also loved the animals (no surprise there). Here's an orangutan who climbed wires just over our heads. I found out later that he had actually peed on some tourists. Thankfully, our heads remained dry.

We saw baby tamarins. So cute!

Katie and Daniel loved the elephants. I'll have to record Katie's imitation of an elephant. It's fantastic. Here are Katie, me, Sara, and Daniel (thanks for taking the photo, Lindsey!).

Gorillas always seem to give a show for Katie and me. In San Diego, we got an up-close look of gorilla butt. In D.C. we got to see one pee:

After only 3 1/2 hours, Daniel and Katie were asleep in their strollers. I was pretty exhausted myself!

After the naps, we met up with Daddy and other members of my family for an early dinner. Here Katie and her cousin Andrew play with each other:

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Watch Katie Grow Up

Katie is growing up before our eyes! And since not all of you can be here in person, I'm hoping these few video clips will give you just a small sample of all that we're seeing her learn to do.

First up: Katie can now hold her own glass to drink. I haven't risked anything but water yet, but it's still cool to watch her do this.

Next up: Talking! WOW! Last night she said "cookie" for the first time to my mom, and tonight it took about 15 takes to get her to say it on film (listen carefully -- she says it in a whisper!).

For several months now we've been working on the baby signs and sounds for different animals. Here's Katie's baby sign for frog:

And here she makes the sounds for a lion and a bear (which, yes, are exactly the same in KatieTalk):

Katie's first animal sounds (cow and cat) were made on February 29. How do I remember that? Because I blogged it immediately! This blog really is my baby book for my beloved daughter.

Great-Grandma, Kittens, and Eeyores -- Oh My!

A few weeks ago, while John was away on business, Katie and I drove 6 hours to go visit my grandma in the days leading up to her move into an assisted living facility. We enjoyed our visit with "Great-Grandma" as well as our time with some of my cousins and a great-aunt.

One fun aspect of this trip was the abundance of kittens everywhere. John's allergic to cats, so Katie has limited exposure to them. So she enjoyed meeting a 5-week old kitten belonging to my cousins:



In addition, when we stopped by my mom's cousin's house to see if she was in, we found no one home -- except for many more kittens! We enjoyed playing on the porch with the kittens, until Katie decided the kittens' food was much more interesting to play with than the kittens themselves.

Later that day, my cousin Jessica came over and noticed that Katie's favorite stuffed animal is her Eeyore. I ran a quick errand and returned to discover Katie in paradise -- sitting in a HUGE pile of Eeyores! It turns out that Jessica also loves Eeyore and collects versions of the character in all colors and sizes. Katie was having so much fun that Jessica gave her three of the Eeyores to take home with her. Thank you, Jessica!

California, Here We Come (Part 5)

Our day at the San Diego Zoo was fantastic. We saw many animals much closer up than we have seen at the National Zoo -- elephants, pandas, giraffes, zebras, peacocks, gorillas (esp. one's butt), hippos, camels, and meerkats are all represented in the photos below. The highlight for me was seeing koala bears for the first time -- I wanted to take one home so badly! Katie enjoyed seeing all of the animals, and she especially enjoyed the petting zoo, where she pet several goats. Well, "pet" isn't the right word. She "pet" the goats the way she "pets" our dog Bella -- in other words, she hits them with both hands like a drum. :-)

My mom was my hero that day (as she usually is) for holding Katie while she napped in her arms. We rode in a ski lift over the zoo, which was much better than having to walk all the way back to the entrance. And it was a blast spending getting to know my future sister-in-law Lindsey that day -- she and Stephen had gotten engaged the week before, and the Zoo was our first time to spend time together in person. (She is currently staying with us this week as she hunts for a job and apartment in our area.)

California, Here We Come (Part 3)

We're baaaack! And I am SO glad to be home. Now I can finally start catching up on blogging our California vacation.

My last California post was about our time in Pasadena. We left Pasadena on Tuesday and drove the few hours south to Escondido, California, where we met up with the rest of my family. While John unpacked the car, Katie experienced a swimming pool for the first time. She loved it!

Unfortunately, I realized a few days later though that her main interest in the pool was drinking the chlorinated water. So I had to be creative about the way I held her in the pool.

The day after we arrived in Escondido, our family went to Sea World. It was fun in some regards, but Katie would have enjoyed it much more if she were a bit older. She had trouble focusing on the fish, and was too young to go on any of the rides. She didn't nap much either which added to the stress of the day. Her favorite activity at Sea World was crawling around on a toddler mat in the Sesame Street section with her cousin Ali:

She also enjoyed seeing the killer whales and dolphins, and meeting a horse and a Sesame Street character:

Near the end of the day, we had reservations for Dinner with Shamu. We sat around the killer whale pool while eating from a buffet. They had told us that we might get a little wet. However, John, our digital camera, and our nephew Drew got completely SOAKED when the killer whale decided to splash our side of the pool. Our camera conked out after taking these photos. Thankfully it came back to life the following day.

Here's a photo taken by the Sea World photographer before the dinner began (and while John was still dry):

This was probably our most exhausting day since our plane had landed in Phoenix. Thankfully the next day, scheduled as an R&R day, things started to turn around.

To be continued...