golden

on the 23rd of june she stood for a few seconds without holding on!

around the same time she started stacking blocks and not just pushing them over!

on the 25th of june she was putting a ball into the dump truck and rolling it back and forth. she was also playing with the "stacking" wooden light house that belonged to my brother when he was little. she tried to stack a cardboard block onto it. heeeheee!

july 6th
golden responds by blowing kisses if she hears "janny" or "i love you!" thanks to our downstairs neighbor!

wow. now it is the middle of september and she is doing sooooooo much!

she began to really walk on 9-9-09. it was our first day of mops for the fall semester, and they had stuck her in the classroom with all these big toddlers! i am pretty sure she was the only one there who couldn't walk, (well she could, as we shall see, but being able to and doing it are two different things...) and there were a ton of kids in there! well i was a bit worried about her getting bowled over, but sure enough, it was the boost she needed to encourage her to do this, cause she began walking later that afternoon! woohoo! yes, she had taken one step or so a few times before this. i think the first time was on the 17th of august.

golden's also been teething like a monster! well, a sweet monster, but it is profuse teething. for awhile she was waking up three and four times a night again! she has four molars and all 8 front teeth and i believe she is now working on canines. i think sparrow had all her teeth at 18 months too.

she is doing the funniest little thing right now, because she learned "nase," which is nose. i mean, she knows to point to it, not that she can say it. but it is so great, because not only does she point to it, she sticks her finger in her nostril and starts twisting! hahaha, i love it! she generously picked both my nostrils for me in this way the other day while she was nursing. so helpful!

golden loves to look at board books, and i give her a book in her crib every night so she can look at it in the morning if she gets up before everyone else. poor thing has not gotten nearly the literary attention that sparrow has, but at least she enjoys doing this solo. every time i do read her a book, i have to translate it into german anyways. and sparrow, i have to say, is a total literarily-trained phenomenon. if i am reading her stories or even novels like the laura ingalls kind, she can sit still and pay attention for ages! but if we are trying to do family devotions, or if i am trying to get her to focus on eating or picking up toys, she won't! i have been reading to her daily since she was a baby, but i haven't been trying to train her in any of those other things until recently. amazing.

for a few days, golden's favorite thing to say (esp. looking at books), was "oh, da!" soooo cute. i got it on video. now she does more varied sounds.

today she tried to show me the sign for "giraffe," which i make by putting my hand on my throat and stretching it and turning my head side to side. she has the right idea! but she grabs her own face instead of her throat, and waggles it side to side.

she can say several words: "die sterne" (the stars) is a pretty clear one that she attempts daily. she loves the hanging glitter stars above sparrow's bed and points them out to me pretty much every time we are nursing in the chair throughout the day. she also knows the signs for a lot of the animals on her noah's ark mobile: zebra, lion, squirrel, crocodile, bird, etc. and she can do cat, dog, frog, horse, monkey, duck, mouse (squeaking) and bunny (sort of.) you put up two fingers like bunny ears. she usually manages one to three fingers and bends and straightens them dutifully. love it! oh yes, she can also say "hase," which means bunny in german. she also does the funniest thing for donkey: she nods her head up and down vigorously. apparently i nod my head up and down when i say "hee haw." dog is definitely her favorite animal right now. she calls almost everything "de" and says "wuff" and gets all excited. she did this with a wooden elephant the other day and kept on insisting it was a dog, even when i was doing the elephant sign repeatedly!

today (sept. 15th) she also did the sign for "tree." she was so in awe of the tree above her head as i changed her diaper on the grass.

she is just all around lovely.