It’s time for an update on The Bean… because it’s been a while. 3 months to be exact.
I’m not sure why 15 months seems like a significant age worth documenting, but maybe it’s just that 13 and 14 don’t sound all that “big”. 15 months allows me to split up Keelin’s 2nd year into 4 major updates which, to be totally honest, is a great break from the weekly updates that I dedicated myself to in her first year. Let’s get right to it because… well… she’s a growing girl, and this may take a while.
Vocabulary – aka the road to becoming a talk show host
At 12 months Keelin was sitting pretty with the basics; mama {sometimes} dada {all the time}, giggling, and random babble. Now at 15 we’re still prominent with ‘dada’ seeing as how it tends to be the default for everything that doesn’t have a name yet. It’s still adorable. I’m still jealous. There ya have it. She will say ‘mama’ from time to time, especially when she’s mad at me for not letting her have what she wants. Yes, we’ve entered into tantrum world… more on that later.
But by-far her favorite word would have to be ‘doggie’. I was unaware that ‘doggie’ has a wide variety of pronunciations, but my dear child has gone through just about all of them. Doooogie, dowgeeee, duggie {victory}, etc. Holy crap she loves those dogs and loves even more that she knows what to call them. Again, it’s adorable.
But that’s not the only animal-themed bit of vocab she has in her alphabet soup. She will ‘woof’ like the doggies which generally comes out as a forced ‘f’ sound and is accompanied by the cutest curly lipped pucker you’ve ever seen. Props to Biscuit the dog for assisting in that skill. She’s also mastered the ‘ish’ part of ‘fish’ and knows exactly where they are in the house. She’ll see a photo of a fish in a book, point to it, whisper ‘ish’ and look over at the aquarium. Genius I tell you. We are still working on ‘cat’ but from time to time when I’m being completely foolish recreating animal noises she will let out the sweetest ‘maaa’ in an attempt to meow. Yes, my heart breaks a little each time she does it.
She’s a big-time giggler and will mimic our laughs…which I’m currently trying to utilize to help teach her what monkeys say. She also loves saying ‘hi da’ whenever Z comes home from work or goes into her room after a nap. Add that to her love of singing, which she does just about any time we have music {with vocals} playing and she’s always chatting up a storm. But her most recent discovery is the word ‘bubble’. Z’s dad is a clown with the Big Apple Clown Care Unit that visits sick children in hospitals. A few days ago he came over after work and brought his back of tricks which included bubbles. She loved them, the dogs went ape-shiz, and by the end of the day she was giving us a muffled form of ‘baba’. Since then she’s decided that bubble can ONLY be said with the assistance of her finger so as soon as you ask her to say it she brings her hand to her mouth and strums her lips while she talks. What a cheater.
Let’s Get Physical
People are constantly telling me that Keelin looks exactly like her daddy. To which I generally respond, “Yes, if I didn’t push her out myself I would wonder if she was mine”. But now that she’s become this awesome little person I’m seeing more and more of myself {did I just call myself awesome?} in her actions. Especially the dancing. Watch out SYTYCD Season 29! Keelin loves to flap her arms, twist her torso, and rock her hips back and forth. We were watching SNL on Hulu the other day and she was busting out some sweet moves to one of Justin Timberlake’s latest tunes. Of course this make’s me oober happy and allows me to daydream about her first dance recital and the perfectly pink tutu she’ll no-doubt spill chocolate milk on during rehearsal week. Le sigh. Here’s a little snippet of her dancing – pardon my shaky camera, I was trying to dance with her!
How else is she rocking her physical fitness? Climbing. Lots of climbing. The stairs have been a breeze for a while now so instead of crawling up them she’s insisting on WALKING up them. She hangs on to the railings and steps up each stair. She hasn’t quite captured the fact that her upper body SHOULD be in line with her feet as she’s going up, but that doesn’t stop her. She gets herself into a stunning diagonal {head hanging down over the lower steps of course, because this mama needs more things to give her a heart attack} and some how releases one of her hands to find the next rung up so she cal recover her balance and do it all again with the next step. Needless to say one of us is ALWAYS a step behind her and it takes a really long time to get upstairs.
She’s also gotten pretty great at butt-scooting down the stairs. She prefers to be holding one of our hands during the journey, which I’m totally fine with, but it also takes forever because our steps are slatted and she likes looking back through them to see who is downstairs.
And we officially have a couch-climber. Apparently her daddy taught her one day when I was out of the house. Of course. I’m surprised she hasn’t really tried to climb up anything else. Maybe subconsciously knows that the couch is nice and soft so it’s safer when she throws her face into the cushion.
But I have to say that one of my favorite new physical quirks is learning how to ‘pound it’. She’s been a high-fiver for a while now and just for fun we tried to get her to fist-bump. She wasn’t really into it at first until one day a few weeks ago when our neighbor came over to babysit while I kicked butt at a consignment sale. Keelin had woken up from her nap and was playing with her new toys when I gave ‘pound it’ one more shot. All of a sudden she formed her hand into a loose fist, made a broken wrist, and held it out for contact. What was even cuter was the way she lifted her shoulder to her ear to help lift her hand up. In case you were at all curious, yes, we make her do it all the time. And she loves it. Here’s proof.
Too Toothy
We are up to 12 teeth and counting. It’s a nice even spread with one molar on each side, top and bottom, and four spread across the front, top and bottom.
Mama’s Little Helper
One of Keelin’s new favorite past-times is to help Z or I empty the dishwasher. What started out as her grabbing at the dishes and us telling her to put them down, turned into her picking the dishes up and handing them to us. Smart little stinker working around the ‘no’ command so she can keep touching the plates. She can obviously only reach the bottom rack so it’s minimal assistance, but it’s definitely a foreshadow of the future when she is big enough to help out more around the house and even help with future little siblings.
Defiance
For your sake and mine I’ll save this category for another post because, lets face it, toddlers aren’t the best with discipline starting out.
oh boy
Snuggle Bug
Keelin has gotten super snuggly lately. She’ll reach up like she wants to be held but when we pick her up she’ll grab hold of our necks and press her cheek against ours. If that’s not sweet enough she’ll pat the back of our heads with her tiny hands, as if to mimic us when we are comforting her. She loves pulling us in while she’s up on the changing table too.
Firsts
There have been plenty of firsts in the last 3 months, most of which I’ve already mentioned {climbing down steps, climbing up on the couch, etc.} but Keelin also had her first ride on a swing
and had her first haircut! I wish I could have waited a little longer but her poor little bangs were hanging down in her eyes. And since she’s really good at pulling every matter of hair accessory out of her hair, it was time. She did pretty well, didn’t really cry but squirmed all over the place. Z and I thought she looked like a little french girl afterwards so we lovingly call her Mon Petite every now and then.
To keep you from a full day of reading I’ll cut it here. Those were the major updates from the last 3 months and I can’t wait to see what the next 3 have in store!
Happy 15 months mon petite! You are so loved.
Until next time…
