Thirteen Months

Wow, this child is literally learning something new every day! Things she can do now that she couldn't do a month ago: -

When you say 'Where's Daisy gone?', instead of covering her eyes and playing peekaboo, she says 'Boo!'.

She can recognise various animals from her farmyard set that Auntie Jen bought for her birthday, and also from a wooden puzzle that Uncle Tom got her. So if you say 'Where's the chicken?' she'll find it and hold it up. She knows chicken, cow, horse, sheep, doggie and pig from her farmyard set, plus butterfly, rainbow, house, bear, flower and cat from her wooden puzzle. She can also say 'bear', 'ball', and she says 'poo' for 'spoon' and 'at' for 'cat', and not just in the context of looking at the puzzle - we were walking round the supermarket today and she started saying 'at'. I looked up and realised we were walking past the pet food and there were pictures of cats all over the place :).

She can make the noises of a few animals, including lion (the cutest 'rah' you ever heard), cow, chicken, sheep (for some reason until a couple of days ago her 'sheep' was a silent one - she would say 'baa' but without actually making a sound so it looked more like a goldfish, but she's started actually saying 'baa' now) and, as of this weekend, snake and monkey. I've been trying to get them on video but she hasn't been playing; will persevere.

She can also point out various parts of her body, including her hair, nose, mouth, ears, tummy, knees and feet. I decided against teaching her 'eyes' because she does tend to prod the particular body part named quite vigorously :). Again, video to follow.

She's learned to say and sign 'please' when she asks for something. So instead of just hearing 'mo, mo' all day, now I hear 'mo', then I ask 'What do you say?' and she says 'pees' while putting her hand to her mouth. Still working on a video of this too :).

Her walking is coming on, although she's still not all that interested in walking unaided, or even holding on to my hands. She's cruising round the furniture a lot more, and I would say that whereas a month ago crawling was her main method for getting about, I think now it's about 50/50 crawling and walking. If she can get to where she needs to be by cruising the furniture and not having to sit down, she will do.

She loves to High Five if you put your hand up, and as well as saying 'Nanna' she now says 'Apa' for Grandpa. She's still working on the 'J' sound for both Jon and Jen, so at the moment it's more like 'Doh' and 'Deh', but she'll get there.

If you ask her to give kisses to whatever she's holding, she will lean in and do it, whether it's a toy, a bottle top or a coaster, but ask her to give kisses to a real person and she'll smile, shake her head and say 'Nah' :).

She's very aware of what she may and may not do, especially in the living room, the place where she spends most of the time when we're in the house and she's not sleeping. For instance, I heard her saying 'No' today; I turned round and she was shaking her head and smiling while holding the remote control...