Miranda is 13 Months 2015

Miranda says: dada, tickle-tickle-tickle, mama, go, and yesh (yes) in that order of frequency. How exciting! She's been saying tickle-tickle for a long time now, but it really never gets old.

 

She also understands some simple things beyond the words she says, like when we tell her to get something (Get a book! Get the ball!), tell her to dance, or tell her no.

Sly smile

She constantly brings us books to read to her. Usually it's the same book over and over again for days and weeks at a time: Dinosaur Versus the Library, and Hello Ladybug are her two favorites.

Reading before bed.

She loves to dance and does so every day. She recently became interested in Country music. It's become our little thing.

Dancing!!

Rocking the Iowa outfits Dada got for them.

I am so cute!

She has 5 teeth, the four in the middle and a bonus one on top. She really got chubby lately so we think she's about to growth spurt again. She can drink from a bottle or sippy cup on her own but prefers that we feed her.

Hiding with a stolen sippy cup

She enjoys bath, but we think she might prefer showers because she insists on standing in the bath.

Bathtime is the best!

She still sleeps well, from 8 pm - 7:15 am or so, but sometimes gets up an hour earlier when James gets up. She takes two naps but fights the second one most of the time, and sometimes we have to give up.

  

Sleeping

She and James continue to be best friends.

I don't know what this game is

How did she get over the gate?

By problem-solving! James is her stool.

And guess who goes down the slide now! Like James, Miranda started walking early (9 months for James and 10 months for Miranda) and so they both had the experience of being the youngest toddlers at the park. Being able to run around the park doesn't mean being able to get any use out of it though, and for a long time she just ate wood chips while James played. But she climbs up now and goes down the slide mostly on her own. Nonetheless, I took a ride with her, mostly because I would look silly going down by myself.

Wednesday:

Weeee!


James comes to greet us.


On her own.

Thursday:

Trying to hang with the big boys

Saturday:

Siblings on the swings!

Yay!

Excuse me, can I have your ball? No? Okay then.

James is 13 Months Old! 2012

I don't think I'm going to do these updates every single month since James has passed the 1-year mark, but I noticed some things worth mentioning this month so here goes. He has 9 teeth, the 8 center ones and a molar on the bottom left. His walking and running is much better and he doesn't fall as often.  He will carefully step onto the sidewalk from the grass or vice versa. He can even navigate small hills.

James at 13 Months, May 20

James seems to understand a lot more, and is more willing to copy what we do or say.  He knows the words: mama, dada, no, and maybe "leche."  The other day he said "no" back to me.  We were watching Two and Half Men the other day (which Kevin does not approve of) and when they sang "Men..." between segments, James trying to sing back, "meh...."

He points to things he thinks are interesting.  I think he's copying what I do, more or less, because I'll point to things and say, "What's that?" and then tell him what it is. So now he points to things to get me to ask him and then tell him. And sometimes he points to copy us.

Pointing at fish at the Discovery Center in Charlotte, NC

He no longer just pushes down blocks and takes apart legos. Sometimes, if you watch him carefully, you see him stack some blocks, assemble legos, or play in some other advanced way.

He pretends to eat and drink from his stacking cups. He also pretends to feed me or Kevin. He'll take his spoon and some cup-like item and dip the spoon in, then try to shove the spoon in my mouth. Fighting it is not the best plan, so I usually accept and say "thank you" or "gracias."  He sometimes grabs a large container of some kind and tries to wear it as hat even though he hates real hats. My child is officially pretending. How awesome.

We taught him to raise his arms when we ask "How big are you?" just like Owen did at his age.  He's still very temperamental about when he will comply, and refused to do it the entire time we were visiting the Vonderhaars.

Showing all of Charleston, SC how big he is. 

He's done high fives for a long time, but he's finally starting to wave hello and goodbye now.  He's also a little spotty on this.

He loves music and enjoys his music box, a drum from Ash, and other children's musical toys. We need to get him a xylophone because he was really banging on Carter's when we visited the Padgets.  He also likes modern dance music, much to Kevin's chagrin. He is particularly a fan of Nicki Minaj.  But his favorite song is still "Itsy Bitsy Spider" and he's starting to do the hand signals in an almost recognizable way.