Nora’s learned a few new words this month. She now says “baby” and excitedly points out babies every where we go. She likes to drop things and say, “uh oh.” She says, “bye bye” on the phone, to birds and cats in our yard, and to anyone who leaves the house. And she finally says, “mama.” :) Oh, she figured out how to shake her head “no,” too…

Also in her vocabulary are an assortment of animal sounds. She makes the noises for sheep, pigs, ducks, chickens, horses, cows, cats, owls, and our personal favorite – elephants. And thanks to her brother, she also knows what sounds to make for trucks, airplanes, and trains.

Every week while Jonah is at preschool, Nora and I go to the library for story time. She really loves the singing that they do and wants me to sing the library songs to her before naptime. It’s really fun to see her following along with the songs, stomping, clapping, and wiggling with the other kids. She points out body parts and makes animal sounds when the librarian asks those kind of questions – she’s quite the little participant!

She really likes trying to draw things and always wants the markers and pencils and chalk that Jonah is using. The Magna Doodle is another favorite toy, and she’s often requesting that someone draw her a duck that she can then scribble on or erase and say ‘bye bye’. Jonah’s gotten pretty good at drawing them for her, too. :)

Physically, she’s really picked up speed in the past few weeks. There are times where I’d say she’s pretty close to running, especially when she’s playing her favorite chasing games. She’s still wanting to climb on things all the time and loves to be up on the couch or Jonah’s bed. Two of her canine teeth have broken through this week, too, and again, she’s been completely unbothered by the whole teething thing.

Other useful developments this month are that she pretty much feeds herself all the time and rarely wants my help with the spoon. She’s getting good at it, even though she still wants to put way too much in her mouth at once. And the most awesome development – putting herself to sleep!! Sean or I had been happily rocking her to sleep for naps and bedtime until a few weeks ago when I’d sing a few songs and then she’d start leaning out of my lap, pointing toward the crib. I asked her if she just wanted to go lie down, and she said “YeahYeah!!” So I put her in, and she fell asleep. Every once in a while now, after a few minutes, she’ll whine/cry for one of us to come back in for a few more minutes of rocking (which we do), but for the most part she just happily rolls around and falls asleep. Ahhhh…

Oh, and thank goodness Jonah’s around to capture her attention by jumping all around while I’m trying to take her picture, because this month she’s also learned how to climb down out of the chair by herself. Without his help, things were pretty much looking like this: