To the park we go…

We woke up this morning to something new.  When Ashlyn wakes up on the weekend, she’ll talk to herself and play with her binkies (pacifiers) until one of us gets up.  This morning, she called out for us.  First was '”daddy… daddy…?” followed right after by “mommy…  mommy..?”.  Normally we take turns letting the other one sleep in a bit, but after that we didn’t have a choice but to both get up.

Ashlyn’s mastery of body parts is continuing.  She already knew ear, eye, nose, and mouth, but we can now add feet, hands, and hair to the mix (see pictures below).

The weather was great this weekend, so we rolled the wagon out the door and to the local park.  It’s not much of a park really, but it has some swings and we were interested to see what Ashlyn thought of them.  She seemed to enjoy it, but she’s probably still a little small for them as you can see from the middle picture below.

Playtime is getting more interesting, Ashlyn likes being turned upside down and rolling over.  She’s a climber, and has no fear when climbing on top of things or being swung through the air.

So we keep watching and teaching, and in turn she keeps growing and learning, laughing and crying, climbing and falling. 

    

She’s definitely not a baby anymore.

Every day is something new…

I think back on Ashlyn a year ago, when milestones were measured by the month and a simple action like picking up her head was considered a great achievement.  I look back on the past few weeks, and it’s hard to keep track of them all.  The rate at which she’s learning is incredible, every day she shows us something new.  Her vocabulary keeps increasing, as does the frequency in which she uses real words to communicate.  “Hello” and “Byeeeee” are now said regularly, and in the proper situations.  It’s neat to hear, but I’ll admit it’s a little sad when she says “Byeeee” as soon as I hand her over to Ms. Indira at daycare.

She’s also started to learn body parts.  In a span of 45 seconds, I took the pictures below after asking the following questions:

Question:  Where is your nose?

Question:  Where is your mouth?

Question:  Where is your ear?

Question:  Where is your baby fro?

   

Okay, so maybe the last one wasn’t real, but the rest were!

You may have remembered a picture from the January 5th post of Ashlyn eating a popsicle.  This is how she eats it as a dessert.  Here you can see the progression from “Mmm, banana!”, to “Wait, this colder than bananas..” to finally “coooooooollldd!”.

 

And now, since you people seem to like pictures, here’s four more.  You’ll see Ashlyn in the snow, Ashlyn with Aunt Sisa, Ashlyn playing with Mommy, and Ashlyn conquering the stairs.  You won’t see Mommy just out of frame ready to catch her.

Happy Birthday Daddy!!!

Ashlyn wanted to give a special Birthday wish to her Daddy, but since she is not yet gifted with his wonderful writing skills she chose to be cute causing me to take a picture instead (this is Heather if anyone is confused).  Now this picture wasn't actually taken today, but as I was perusing pictures on my iPhone I noticed the TV in the background:

I assure you I did not press pause or even notice this at the time, but this accidental image captured Ashlyn's and my sentiments exactly. We have the best husband and father two girls could could hope for. Happy Birthday Jeff, we love you!!

15 Months and counting!

Today was Ashlyn’s 15 month appointment with the Doctor and I’m pleased to say that she passed the tests with flying colors.  She moved up a bit on the growth chart thanks to a recent growth spurt (and the accompanying eating frenzy).  She’s back in the 75% percentile in height.  Her weight was the same, around 40%, and her noggin’ is still holding steady at 75%, mainly because of all the hair. 

Or, as Grandma would say, she’s a genius and needs the room for that big ‘ol brain.  According to the Doctor, Ashlyn falls into the “advanced speech” category, due to the 10 or so words that she knows (the 18 month checklist had 6 words as the target).  She’s also right in line with her mobility skills, which is a good thing.  I still remember thinking that she’d never stop doing her little crab walk across the floor, and now she’s walking like a champ.

A surprising discovery at the Doctor’s came from Ashlyn’s teeth.  While Ashlyn was warming up for the post-shot cry with a pre-shot cry (she knows what the table is for, and starts crying as soon as she’s laid down on it), Heather noticed some white at the back of Ashlyn’s mouth.  It turns out that Ashlyn has already grown 2-3 molars!  This is great, because she hardly put up a fuss from them, especially compared to the first few teeth.

She’s also getting her first taste of popsicles.  I was hoping this would also be a milestone with the Doctor, but alas the question “Does she eat popsicles?” did not come up on the questionnaire.  We must be focusing on the wrong things.



She’s still not quite sure what to make of them, but it helped her learn a new word: “cold”. She learned that one fast, and now will say it when you take her outside without a jacket.  This did help on the questionnaire at the Doctor’s office, so maybe the popsicles weren’t a bad thing after all.

I hope everyone had a great New Year!  I know we did, we were wild and stayed up to 10:30pm.  15 month olds don’t know the concept called “sleep in”.