Another installment of Leah's Latest

In three short weeks, we'll say goodbye to all things familiar and board a plane to Shanghai, which will be our new home for the next three years. Until that time, there's still so much to arrange, but hopefully, with good planning (and very little sleep), we'll get it all done. The movers are coming this week, so we'll be very busy organizing and separating which stuff is going by sea, by air, in our luggage, with us on the plane, and which stuff we'll leave behind.

All of Leahs' toys will disappear and she'll have nothing to play with for another two weeks, except for a few things we'll bring with us on the plane to keep her busy during a 20-hour travel day. We have a feeling she won't let her play kitchen go without a fight. We feel really bad that she might not see it for another 2-3 months. It'll be a crazy week, especially since nothing is easy when you have an active toddler around.

So for now, here's my latest installment of what Leah's been up to lately. She's actually been doing many of these things even before I even went to Shanghai, but I haven't had much time to blog since then.

Jumping - Her jumping is getting better and better. She jumps all the time, and even did a double jump once. Oh, and when she's mad and trying to get her point across, she will not only stomp her feet, but she'll jump, too!

Singing and dancing - Leah loves music. She sings all the time now. She sings along with music in the car, and to herself whenever she feels like it. She loves to sing and dance together. And we have even seen her playing her xylophone like a piano while singing along.

Here are a few clips of her singing today.

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Pretending to sleep - Something she likes to do is crawl into bed and lay on a pillow and pull the covers up and go "shhh" and close her eyes. She even does the motion for turning out the lights. If only it were that easy getting her to sleep!

Pretending to read - She runs her finger along the words in a book and pretends she's reading. Or she pretends to spell words. For instance, when I wear my Gap sweatshirt, she points to each letter and sounds like she's trying to spell the word Gap.

Oh no! - Her favorite expression nowadays is "Oh no!" and this has pretty much replaced "Uh oh". She's always exclaiming "Oh no! Oh no! Oh no!" every time she sees something is wrong. If she sees something has spilled, or the notices something in a book or on Tv, etc., she shouts this. One funny example, I had a zit on my nose for about three days, and she noticed it right away. Every day, she would come right up to me and point at it and go "Oh no!" with great concern.

Hug your ba-ba's - Whenever we say this to Leah while she's eating in her highchair, she goes crazy and thinks it's just hilarious. She grabs her sippy cups and hugs them really tight and laughs so hard!

Laugh and smile - She knows the meaning of these words now. When I say "laugh", she'll giggle. And when I say "smile" she'll do a big cheesy grin.

Cheese! - She has her own camera (an old one that no longer works right), but she loves to turn it on and take pictures. Usually she has it pointing toward her face, which is cute. The last few days, I've noticed her saying "cheese" when she's trying to take a picture. And also when I'm taking a picture of her.

All done! - She says this in a sing-song way with the arm motions, the way we learned it in Kindermusik, whenever she's done eating or taking a bath or at the end of a book.

There you are! - She says this all the time whenever one of us reappears or when she sees something she's looking for, and it really does mean "there you are/there it is". Her version sounds like "day yee ah".

I'm fine - I've been teaching Leah how to answer when I ask "How are you?". So now, when I ask, she says all by herself "I'm fine". She usually tries it about 10 times in a row, and sometimes it's very clear!

Phone calls - Her phone calls are getting better and better. We get such a kick out of watching her on the phone. Stay tuned for some good videos of her making calls.

Here she is a few weeks ago in the car right after she woke up from a nap. This went on for about 10 minutes straight and I took a bunch of videos, but here is just one.

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Her step stool - Leah has discovered how handy a step stool can be. She carries it around with her all over the house to get a better view of things on the countertops and over the safety gates. So now, we have to be even more careful about what is on the counters because she's grabbing everything she can off of them. Note to self: hide the step stool.

She also loves trying on her santa hat.

18 months old today

We can't believe Leah is 18 months old already! It's so amazing to watch her grow and change day-by-day. Cognitively, she can understand so much and can communicate so well these days. It won't be too much longer before she starts putting words together.

She was supposed to have her 18-month check-up today, but we had a snow day here and the appointment was rescheduled for Monday. Lucky for her, since she's due for some more shots, including her second H1N1 shot. Turned out we didn't get that much snow after all, so while we were out running errands, we ended up going downtown to the Korean restaurant for some delicious food. Leah loves Korean food and pigs out whenever we go there. We can't believe how much she can eat. We've become regulars there and will really miss the great food and the nice people there, and that will definitely be one of our stops during our home visits.

Over the holidays, we finally switched her car seat to forward-facing. Even though you can do this at 12 months or 20 lbs., we wanted to keep her backward-facing for as long as possible for safety reasons. But she is starting to get taller and heavier and it was becoming hard for me to get her into the car seat, plus, her feet were touching the seat back, so we decided it was time. The only bad thing is that I can't reach over the seat and hand her things anymore. Now I have to throw them, but she thinks that's pretty funny, too.

Here are some of the cute, funny, and smart things Leah has been up to lately....this is a long one.

Touchdown! Since John is a huge NY Giants fan, we've spent a lot of Sundays this season watching football together (at least until the Giants were out of the running). Leah loves hanging out with us in front of the tv and sharing snacks. We taught her how to say "touchdown" and now when she sees football on tv, even a short tv commercial or something, she raises her arms up over her head and shouts "tah dah!".

Mom-Mom. Ever since the holidays, Leah has started calling me "mom-mom". She had already been calling me "mama" before this, but just not that often. And she would say "Hi da da" to both of us. Now, I'm finally getting my turn. She loves repeating "mom-mom" or "mama" over and over again and will call out for me when she doesn't see me. If I'm upstairs or something, I'll hear her shouting "mom-mom!".

New animal sounds. She already knew duck, dog, cat, sheep, cow, etc......and now we can add horse, frog and monkey to that list.

Name that ornament. One of her favorite activities right now is to drag us over to the Christmas tree (yes, we're planning on dragging it out of here this weekend), and have us quiz her on all the ornament names. She is such a quick learner and has a great memory, so after quickly naming everything for her, she can identify and point to all the ornaments by name. In fact, she can't get enough of it and she probably won't let the tree go without a fight!

Knock Knock. I've had the show "House Hunters" on the past few days. During the intro to the show there's a doorbell sound. Whenever Leah hears that, she says "nah nah", she made that association on her own. If she can't get a door open, she knocks on it and says "nah nah". It's really cute. She loves saying knock knock, and we always hear her saying that in the car while reaching towards the door and trying to knock on it.

Hugs and kisses. Leah is so incredibly affectionate. She spontaneously, without any prompting, gives hugs and kisses all the time. When we say "I love you" she has to give us a kiss and a hug. She often comes up from behind and just hugs us. When we're out in stores or in restaurants, she often reaches for us and pulls us over to hug our arms, and won't let go. We call it, "Leah's having a moment". It can get a little embarrassing even! But hey, I'm not complaning.

Leading us around. She still loves to grab us by our fingers and drag us around. She'll lead us over to the Christmas tree and make us lift her up, or she'll lead us to her kitchen and pull us down to sit and play, or push us up from sitting, etc. She definitely lets us know what she wants and is very strong and persuasive!

Bye! Leah loves to say "Hi" and "Bye" and wave. She says it all the time, to people in stores, to us as we are walking away from her or going to another room, in the car, or on the phone when she's making pretend phone calls. These days, with her pretend phone calls, she's actually making calls instead of just receiving them. She presses the buttons and says "beep beep beep" for dialing the phone, and then a bunch of babble, and then "Bye!".

"Hi Beppe". After over two weeks with Beppe, Leah definitely now knows who Beppe is, something which we will help to reinforce with pictures since she won't be seeing Beppe often. Towards the end of the holidays, she was starting to say "Hi Beppe".

"Drink your milk". At meals, I just have to say "drink your milk", and she'll take a sip (if she's in a cooperative mood, that is).

Tick Tock. Leah got a little clock for Christmas and I taught her that the clock says "tick tock" and showed her by putting it up to her ear. She found a clock in one of her picture books and ran over and got her clock and put it to her ear and tries to say "tick tock". Too cute.

Play kitchen. She loves playing in her new kitchen. It's her hangout, and the first thing she goes to every morning. We get a kick out of watching her stirring something and then tasting it. Today, she was pointing to the cookies in the display case and saying "ka ka" (cracker, we sometimes just call cookies crackers) and then she ran and got a little goldfish cracker and put it next to it. She also started using the price scanner as a telephone and made a bunch of phone calls today. It was hilarious. I took a video of it and will post it soon.

Hot Hot Hot. When her food is still a little hot, I've always said "hot hot hot" and blown on it. She knows what this means and will do the same. If something is a little hot, she'll say "hot hot" and blow on it.

Hup. When she wants to be picked up, she'll say "hup" or "up" and hold her arms out.

Ah-choo. Leah thinks sneezing is pretty funny. I was sneezing the other day, and then doing it in an exaggerated way, and now she knows the word sneeze and will say "ah choo".

There it is/There you are. She doesn't really enunciate, of course, but she uses the correct intonation and uses it appropriately when she sees something or when she sees us.

Potty update. I haven't pushed this at all lately. But she still climbs out of the bathtub quite often and pees in the potty. And at other times, she will just sit on it with her diaper, and when I check her diaper it is warm, so she does pee. It's funny, because even if she has her diaper on, she will check the potty to see if there's anything in it.

Stomp Stomp In one of her Kindermusik books, there's an elephant stomping. So whenever she sees an elephant, she will say "top top" and stomp her feet. The other day, she was in the closet pointing to something and stomping and saying "top top". When I looked to see what she was pointing to, it was one of John's ties (that he never wears) that has elephants on it. She loves this Kindermusik book and can do all the motions for each animal. She especially loves the page with the ladybug who can "stop and make no sound". I mentioned this already before, but she just loves doing this. She says "top", and makes the hand motion for stop and then the Shhh motion. She does this spontaneously all the time.

Other new words she says by herself are "baby", when she sees a baby, "good girl" since I say this to her a lot, "all done" and she says this with the tune and the hand motions we learned in Kindermusik, "cracker". I'm sure there are more, but this is all I can think of right now. She can repeat just about any word I throw at her. She understands so much and can follow instructions really well. She's a really fast learner and picks things up really quickly. This is such an amazing stage!