Bryn enjoyed her first Thanksgiving dinner. The stuffing and pumpkin pie with ice cream were her favorites.
It's been brought to my attention I haven't had a newsy update on Bryn's blog in awhile so here are some tidbits and photos from the past few weeks.
- She's opening up a lot to others and will now let people pick her up or sit with them, though usually on her own terms. She'll happily give hugs and kisses now, which thrills her grandparents.
- In the past month she's slept through the night only twice. On average she's up twice each night for a cuddle. After 8 months of this I suppose we should just resign ourselves to the fact she's not a great sleeper and buy shares in Maxwell House. (This will be my last public comment on our lack of sleep.)
- She's turned into quite a tease and giggles over the silliest things. It used to take a lot to make her laugh so listening to her say "funny" and giggle about something is such a joy. She's such a happy little girl and is developing a real sense of humor but she does have a short fuse so there's usually an outburst or two a day when something doesn't go right but they're short-lived.
- She still carries her wet cloth around and sometimes sticks it on her head and says "nice hat".
- She's become a bit braver and will now go on the swing at the park and down the slide on her play structure. She's mastered climbing up the basement stairs and is getting pretty good at going down. Thankfully we've had no falls yet.
Collecting leaves on a walk by the river.
Walking a mile in dad's shoes.
- Bryn calls her aunts by something they've done with her. There's Auntie Bubbles (LeighAnn, who blew bubbles with her), Auntie Spizer (Simone sings Itsy Spider), Auntie Chele Fries (Michele bought her fries), Auntie Cheese (Carey fed her cheese from a pizza) and Auntie Nonie Cookie, an easy one to figure out.
- She has a picture of Girard and me she carries around and looks at and says "mom, dad, fammia". (Translation: family.)
- She still loves to dance and listen to music and has started singing along to some songs. She sings Wheels on the Bus, Head and Shoulders, Ring Around the Rosy, Row Your Boat, Twinkle Twinkle, Pat-A-Cake and a few obscure ones Girard has taught her. She misses a lot of the words but it's so much fun to listen to her.
- She's back into her books big time and has started to really play with her toys instead of just spreading them around the living room. She likes her Mega Blocks and picture puzzles and loves to draw.
Reading with Nana who came to visit us last week.
Hanging out with Papa, who was here to spend Bryn's 1st Thanskgiving with us.
- We have magnetic letters and numbers on our fridge and she can pick out "m for mom", "d for dad", "b for Bryn" and "j for Jessie". I'm not quite sure if she's made the connection between a number and an amount but she recognizes 0, 1, 4 and 8. She counted to 5 the other day. (Her Nana, who was visiting, just about fell off her chair.)
- We continue to be amazed at her vocabulary. Because she repeats everything we say we really do try to watch ourselves. But we are human and slip up from time to time so for a few days Bryn was saying "Holy cap". Girard has since taught her to say either gadzooks or omigosh. Her sentences are often 3 or 4 words now. Some of her bigger words are necaween (nectarine), dinosaur, addidator and umbrella (I can't figure out how to spell that one the way she pronounces it though).
Helping with the yard work.
- During a summer visit, Bryn's cousin Brianna was teaching Bryn her colors. At 17 months old, that wasn't about to sink in but she loved saying yellow. For the longest time everything was "yewow" which is interesting because ever since China yellow has been her favorite color. It took her awhile but she finally figured out what yellow was. Now she knows yellow, purple, black, brown, green, blue and orange. She's turned into quite a tease as she always starts off by pointing to something and saying "yewow" with a big grin on her face. Of course our response is "that's not yellow!" and she giggles and tells us what color it really is.
- She'll spend hours watching the videos posted on her China sisters' blogs. Now she's wanting to watch the photos and can't quite figure out why they don't move.
As I was rocking Bryn to sleep last night she was so full of energy and chatter and giggles it was taking forever to put her down. At one point she held up her index finger and said "one". Yes, that's right, I said. Then she started saying "one finger." I'd say yes, that's right, good for you! and she'd laugh. Over and over this went til finally she held up both index fingers, looked at them and said "Two ones." I think I'm suffering from information overload -- I can't possibly absorb all this amazing child has to show me in a day.
