Ryanne is becoming quite the little 'human' lately. It's so much fun to watch her interact with her environment and people around her. The personality that is emerging is quite entertaining, and she seems to know it.
Her favorite thing right now is beeping noses. She and I have a nose beeping session at least once a day. It's especially fun to try when she's not wanting to go to sleep. Unfortunately, it seems that the beeper sleeps before she does. That doesn't seem to stop her from trying, though.
She's also developed a new nickname that just cracks her up. "Bonkers" will get her giggling and ready to immediately head-butt you, preferably on your head. She'll settle for knees or walls or even floor, though.
Other favorite new activities that we're not too fond of are biting and pinching. The pinching seems to have calmed down the last day or two, but it was rampant for a while. The biting comes and goes - favorite locations are toes, fingers and arms with the occasional chop while nursing - OW!
She's also learned to hug and kiss. These are great. She'll do everything from throw herself on my shoulders with her arms spread to actually grab around my head and getting her little hands in my hair to give me a hug. Kisses are still open mouthed and a little messy, but still worthwhile.
She also loves to give her bears hugs and kisses. We started picking one "stuffy" per day to play with and that always gets a hug and kiss sometimd during the day. Winnie the Pooh seems to be a favorite - mama's happy. She is also entranced by the Mickey puppet that Uncle M gave her. She's still not quite sure how he knows her name, but he gets lots of hugs if he asks right.
The fascination with board books continues. She has numerous shelves on the bookcase and loves to go get books and bring them to me to 'read' to her. Usually she just sits in my lap and turns pages and I have to try to catch whatever goes by as she flips (quickly). She still seems to prefer single images on a page and having me identify them. There's not much interest in anything that tells a story. When I try to read stories (or recite Wynken Blynken and Nod, which I bought her for sentimental reasons), she quickly gets bored and wanders off. I guess there's too much to see still.
She has taken to playing with her shape sorters and blocks with renewed vigor. She even seems interested in learning how to play with them as shape sorters and blocks instead of just things to carry. She's trying to stack and is very adept at putting all of the circle objects into round holes. She gets VERY mad when the triangle won't go in the round hole, though. I love sitting on the floor and watching her play and she seems to like having me there more often. She'll frequently sit on my lap and bring me toys to help her with.
We're also working more on animal sounds and names. She's decided that the cats say "maaaa" and keeps trying to tell Max that it's "maaa maaa" which never fails to crack me up. She will tell you, when prompted that a cat says either "maaaa" or "maaaa maaa". I think this comes from hearing the cats really meow. She gets very close to the right noise. With less frequency, she can tell you that a dog says "aaaaf aaaf" in a really high pitched voice - there's a yippy dog that lives in the neighborhood and she spent lots of time with Kity's dog, both of whom sound about like that.
She's had two phone conversations. The first was with Auntie Jennifer and the other was with Gamma Ree on her birthday. She actually talked more to Gamma Ree, but I think that's because she understood better what was expected. She loved to listen to each of them say her name and tell her anything, though. I guess it made all of those hours playing with the toy phones worthwhile.
The potty fascination continues. She still takes me to help her a potty a few times each day. She doesn't stay dry, but still seems to love going on the potty. I hope this means she'll be easy to train when the time comes.
Also, her language seems to be coming back. We went through a very frustrating period shortly after arriving where everything was "da" and temper tantrums ensued when we didn't understand. She seems to be more interested in identifying words now and I encourage her to try to stay calm and not get frustrated when trying to tell me something. It's not easy for either of us.
She did say her first two word phrase on 11/19. She kept standing up in the little plastic chair I got for her. I would always tell her that "Chairs are for sitting" and put her down. After about a dozen instances of me telling her this, she stood again and I sighed and opened my mouth. She promptly looked at me, proclaimed "chay-uh siddy" and sat down. She hasn't repeated it since and we're not 100% sure that she really understands them as two distinct words. I think she was just mimicing my sounds. She does understand both "sit" and "chair", though, so only time will tell.
Lastly, she cut her 5th tooth - upper right front - on 11/17. It took forever to actually make it through. She chewed on anything she could find trying to help it along. It spent days swollen and with hunks of gum hanging from it, but eventually made it on through.
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