Leah has become a great mimic these days. She's always watching everything we do and then tries to do everything herself. She combs and brushes her hair, brushes and flosses her teeth, tries to put on her shoes and socks, tries to put on my shoes, pretends to wipe or blow her nose with Kleenex, and copies funny sounds and gestures we make, like gasping, screeching, gulping, and sighing, especially when she's in the highchair or in the car.
Last week, for her birthday, she received a little baby tea party set. I demonstrated how to pour the teapot and pretended to eat the little cakes and drink the tea. I only did this a few times, and just today saw her doing all of this by herself. It was so cute. So now we sit together and have a little tea party!
She also plays a lot with her Little People house. We get such a kick out of watching her pretend play. She puts the little people through the front door, sits them in chairs and on beds and puts the baby in the cradle. We've been noticing how well she plays alone and how focused she can be.
I've started naming her dolls and stuffed animals, and nowadays she will go and get them when I say, "Where's....? Go find.....". If we make them dance, she starts dancing, too!
Just over the weekend, she started twirling and spinning around in a circle! She can go around 3 or 4 times before falling. Something I've always done with her is carry her and spin her around really fast, so maybe she's copying that. She has also started dancing around in a circle, and bobs up and down like she's doing squats when she hears music. She did this at gym class last week and people thought it was really funny. They were impressed with her deep squats!
When I say "hello" or "yoboseyo" (the Korean way of answering the phone), she puts her hand up to her ear like she's answering the phone. She still makes pretend phone calls all the time. We got new phones for the house recently, so I've given her our old ones to use as toys and she runs around making phone calls all the time.
Speaking of running, she runs all the time now. She runs into our arms with the biggest smile. Sometimes we have to be careful because she basically throws herself at us. She goes off to play, but always checks back with us, often bringing us something, giggling and running at full speed. It's the cutest thing. You can tell she's so excited about her new abilities.
I got her her first pair of Nike running shoes last week, in fact. She's outgrowing some of her first soft-soled shoes and needed some shoes she can wear outdoors now that she's running. I was really looking for some sporty sandals, but they didn't have any so I tried these on her instead and she was so excited. At first, she was walking around taking big, funny steps while she was getting used to the feel of them. But soon enough, she was laughing at herself in the mirror and stomping and pounding her feet and running around. I wish I had thought to videotape it because it was hilarious. The sales guy thought she was really funny. After all that excitement, of course she didn't want to get back into the stroller, so I had her follow me all the way through the store to the cash register, and finally I was able to coerce her back in, although she was not happy about it.
Over the weekend on Saturday, we went to baby Sophia's first birthday party and had a great time. Sophia wore her beautiful hanbok and had her turn at the Tol table. Apparently, she will grow up to be a scholar and a good cook, since she chose the pencil and the knife. Don't worry, it was a plastic knife!
And yesterday, we went to the zoo, and boy, was it hot out! It was about 92 degrees, but felt like it was over 100 degrees. We put a lot of sunscreen on Leah, and she even wore her little zoo hat again, but we didn't want her to overheat so we only stayed for a few hours. We were so surprised she kept her hat on since she usually doesn't keep anything on. But at least she seemed more interested in the animals this time. She was pointing at things and really paying attention to everything.
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