Growing Girl

Audrey has been making leaps and bounds lately - so much so that I've been losing track.  Bad Mommy.  Back in October, right around Halloween, she started cutting her top two teeth.  I noticed a few days of fuss, but Mr. Butterfly icey (pictured above) offered some relief.  The teeth aren't fully emerged yet, but very present and obvious in her smiles.  I'm still surprised every time I see them, because top and bottom teeth together is an undeniable sign of the transition from the little baby stage to the big baby (but not quite toddler) stage.  I want her to be my itty bitty again. 

I am ready to declare her FIRST OFFICIAL SPOKEN WORD.  It hasn't been as black and white as one would think...because she'll make sounds that seem to be words, but not consistantly enough for me to be sure she knows what she's saying.  We've heard lots of Dadadadada and MAMAMAMA's from her over the last three months, but I'm still catagorizing those as sounds she makes when she's happy (Dadadada) and frustrated (Mamamama).  The first official word, however, is very intentional, situationally appropriate, and now a very consistant part of her vocabulary. 

Wait for it....

"Uh-oh!"

I didn't realize how often I said uh-oh until she started repeating it back to me.  She began saying it when she would drop food over the side of her high chair, and now it's branched out to the dropping of anything.  Funny enough, though, the "dropping" is never really accidental.  Audrey thinks it's hilarious to drop her food on the floor and watch one of the dogs eat it.  I've even caught her saying uh-oh BEFORE dropping food on a few occasions.  Stinker.  One morning she looked out our kitchen window to see some exceptionally nasty weather, pointed outside and said in a quiet little voice: "uh-oh".  Clearly she gets it. 

If I were to guess what her next "official" word will be....I'm thinking it will be "DOG".  She says "dogdogdogdogdogdog" whenever she sees one, but she's not hitting the g sound hard enough for it to really be there and she has yet to say just one "dog" and leave it at that.  To me it sounds like a cross between "da" and "dog", but we're working on it.  If you ask her where the dog is, she'll look directly at one - whether it's ours or someone else's. 

Some other fun things I've noticed even more recently is that Audrey is starting to recognize items and play with them as they're intended to be used.  This includes holding a phone up to her ear, putting a spoon up to hers - or my - mouth, beating a drumstick against anything noisy, and turning pages of a book to actually look at the pictures.  At mealtime she will "share" bites with me by holding a slobbery piece of food out as far as her little arm will reach, shoving it towards my face.  Mmm.  Usually she jams the food against my mouth and then takes it right back and eats it herself, but she's got the biggest grin on her face when she does it....so I let her.  ;)