Alex knows the word book! How appropriate is that? I've been working specifically with a group of words, and book is the first one she's really grabbed a hold of, although it sounds more like "bu" than book. I think k is kind of difficult. We were just playing in her room, and I asked her where the book was, and she looked around the room until she found a book and went straight to it and picked it up and said "bu" when she picked it up. She's done the same thing before, but I realized that I needed to come and update her blog, so right now she's standing at her gate crying and crying because I left.
This means that she is definitely experiencing some separation anxiety. She's always fine when we leave her with people, but she gets very distraught if I'm not with her 24/7. She's learning to cope and I'm trying to learn the balance between being with her and giving her some independence. (She has currently stopped crying and is playing contentedly.) It's a tough thing to figure out, though, because I can't always be with her, but I want to be with her to play with her and talk with her and help her learn things.
All of this ties into her independence. She is choosing to walk a lot more now, even when she's just chilling out in her room. She also wants to eat (almost exclusively) foods that she can feed to herself, which makes some feeding times more difficult. At the same time, though, it's amazing to watch her eating peas and green beans and beans and chicken and other "real people" food that isn't all smashed up. We're still tracking her weight gain pretty carefully, and she'll see the doctor again at the end of the month to check in with her weight and possibly to go on regular milk. I'm always trying to pack in as many calories into the day as I can, and she's having all sorts of fun eating English muffins and trying to scoop up her applesauce with a spoon.
Her language skills are coming along, and she's learning other new skills as well. She has always been obsessed with taking things OUT, but now she's starting to put things in. She has shaped blocks, and yesterday for the first time she actually put her star block and her circle block into the shaped holes for them! It's really awesome to watch, although sometimes she just chooses to throw the blocks at the general direction. It's never gone in that way, although she's kicked it in when the block was balancing on top of the hole.
And her teeth are just growing and growing, and they are very, very crooked! This doesn't give me hope for having Jason's teeth, which apparently were a TON better than mine were as a kid. Her sleeping schedule has changed some, too, and she's pretty consistently up at 6:00 am and in bed by 7:30 pm, although this morning she was awake before 5:00 and hungry... Hopefully that won't be a constant.
Last but not least, I am sorry to report that we have found one thing that she is absolutely terrified of, and that is The Count from Sesame Street. We've tested in on multiple occasions (NOT with the purpose of terrifying her), and as soon as he comes on the screen, she starts crying like she never cries. It's completely sad and utterly hysterical all at the same time.
