Natalie's Newest

• She has some new words, of course. The most surprising would be umbrella. I don't think we've ever used one with her in the last year. But, she knows that the U on her alphabet poster is umbrella. She knows glasses now, and has started to call sunglasses glasses instead of sun. Twice within a couple days glasses were part of a story in TV and she ran to me talking about it, which is how I figured out what she was saying. She also seems to be calling her cup either juice or something kind of like milk depending on what's in it. One of the cutest is that she is now saying yes, where before it was okay or yeah.
  
• She continues to work on her colors. The newest addition is green. She knows the green circle on one of her floor puzzel pieces and the green pieces of cereal. She was able to answer correctly that a color was blue on a TV show, but then blue is her go to word for colors. In general, pink and red are called pink; purple and blue are blue; green is green; and the other colors don't get names. When all else fails, call it blue.
• Natalie is also working on putting on her clothes. She got a boot on by herself yesterday, but it was for the wrong foot. When presented with new clothes from Auntie, she put all of them on one arm. She tries to line up a zipper or buttons.
  
• She now asks for our hand. If she is going to step into or onto something a little dangerous, she'll say, "hand" or "mama, hand." She'll often walk over and take it and lead us somewhere.
• She knows how to get her arms into the car seat straps and about half the time can do up the chest clip.
  
• Might have said this one before, in the bath, she will wash her parts with a face cloth. Sometimes she labels them as she washes (particularly her face), other times we ask her to wash places and she will. In general, she is really into pointing out the parts of the body on people on TV, in books, and toys. Eyes are a huge favorite.
• She can climb up onto the couch on her own, if her pants don't limit her range of motion.
  
• She has learned to spin in a circle and enjoys getting dizzy.
  
• I've put a stool in front of the bathroom sink for her to wash her hands. She lets you know she wants to wash her hands by saying, "rub, rub."
• She can make a baby crying noise. This morning, she took her little people baby and had it crying. She wasn't sure what to do when I asked her how we might stop the crying.
  
• She sings parts of The Wheels on the Bus (rolling of the wheels, the baby crying, and the daddy shhing), and Row, Row, Row Your Boat (which sounds more like singing with a word you can recognize every once and while, including the crocodile scream and lion roar). Twinkle, Twinkle and the Alphabet Song are still her favorites though.
  
• She sometimes counts things. It usually goes 2, 3, 6, 3. But, she often does know if there are two of something.
  
• My father got her to say her name by pointing at it and saying it over and over on her place mat. She won't answer, "What's your name?" yet, but its a huge step!
• In general, more and more she is talking in phrases or short sentences. Not really the same ones over and over, but just putting together words she knows and throwing in the helping words.
  
• Picking flowers (dandelions) handing them to me is a favorite game.
• She recognizes the park near the library and seems to say the word park. She got angry when I led her away toward the library.
  
• Absolutely no sign of the word please, but it does seem that she says something that means thank you.
  
• I've pretended to be sad a couple times, and she's run over all concerned.
  
• At the library, she willingly swapped toys with another girl her age for a little while. There have a been a few other occasions where she has shared / given another child a toy all by herself.
  
• She likes to walk up the ramp to the shed, then go "knock, knock" on the shed door.
• As I think I said before, Natalie has been more forth coming with kisses and hugs. Just this morning, she was playing "sleep" with us on our bed. She wanted both of us to lay down and close our eyes. She then leaned over and gave Mike a little peck on the check. I was peeking and it was so cute.