No No No, Me Me Me and other new discoveries

It started about a week ago. Leah was practicing the words "No No No" and shaking her head No when we'd ask her a question or offer her something, and using "Me Me Me" when she wanted something. She usually stomps her feet in both cases for full effect. John told me that during the week he was taking care of her, she would "Shhh!" him and shake her head No when he started singing. And one day she didn't like the outfit he picked out and she wanted to choose a different one. We've got one sassy girl on our hands, I'm afraid.

Leah has also figured out how to open doors and is letting herself out of her room in the morning. She's finally able to reach the door handles. Our house has door levers instead of knobs, and she is now tall enough to get up on her tippy-toes and open them all by herself. John said she just started doing this a few times while I was away. On the morning that he left for Shanghai, he had forgotten to put the baby gate back in place at the top of the stairs, and I found her at 6:30 am with her door open, standing and crying at the top of the stairs. Thank goodness I caught her in time since she likes to think she can walk down the stairs forwards like we do. And just today, I saw her coming out of the laundry room, and I always keep that door shut. She can open the pantry door, too.

Singing. She started this several weeks ago. Leah loves watching Sesame Street and particularly loves Elmo. I always sing the Elmo song to her, the one that sounds like Jingle Bells, and she sings it all the time now, too. When I say the word "sing" or "can you sing?", she starts "da da da, da da da". And she says the word "sing" and starts singing spontaneously just by herself. It's really cute.

Acting out songs. When I'm singing to her in the car, I can see she's doing the motions along with the song. I play the CD from Kindermusik for her in the car and sing a lot, and she is really catching on and recognizing the words. For instance, she acts out the "If you're happy and you know it" song and "Itsy Bitsy Spider", and just about any song that has the words jumping, stomping, waving, wiggling, etc.

Blowing her nose. She's been doing this for quite a while, too. Whenever I'd hand her a Kleenex, she would practice and imitate me, but now she's actually getting good at it. It's great since she always has stuff in her nose that I can never get out, so when I give her a Kleenex and say "ok, blow your nose", she'll do it, and she blows hard, too.

Trying to get dressed. She really wants to figure out how to get her clothes, socks, and shoes on. She sits there for quite a while working at it and gets really frustrated. But she doesn't quite realize that pants don't go on your head or around your neck. One thing she's gotten good at lately is unzipping things. So it's hard keeping some sweatshirts and sweaters on her because she's always unzipping them and taking them off.

Waving Hi and Bye Bye to everyone. She used to just open and close her hand, and it was usually facing her, but lately she's figured out how to do the beauty queen wave. She loves saying Hi to people while I'm strolling her around. And she says Bye Bye when we're leaving and going back to the car.

Blowing bubbles in her drink. We always give her a cup to drink from, and she can control it and drink really well from it without spilling. Nowadays, just for fun, she loves to blow bubbles in it. She's also figured out how to make a bunch of silly sounds with her mouth by patting her mouth or running her fingers over her lips.

Coughing. She just started developing a cough yesterday (we'll have to get that checked out) and she would ask "Dis?" while she was coughing. She always loves to learn the words for what she is doing. So I'd tell her that she was coughing and pat my chest and cover my mouth, and now she does that, too. When I say the word "cough", she does it. She even does it in her sleep. Last night, she started coughing in the middle of the night while she was sleeping, and asked "Dis?" and coughed a little more and then fell back asleep.