Monday, August 13, 2012

Rockin' 15 Months

Kaia is hilarious, crazy, brave, smart, adorable and so much more.  She makes us laugh every day.  Just the other night she was walking around with a wide stance, back hunched over.  It looked so funny and we all laughed.  Of course, being the clown that she is, the more we laughed the more she walked.  Now it's called the "silly walk" and I can get her to do it by simply asking.  It's so cute.

Kaia is talking like we can't believe.  We've read that the majority of kids her age (75%) can say mama, dada and a few other words.  Kaia not only has a lexicon of over 50 words, but she's saying two and three word sentences.  It's absolutely astonishing.  I'm sure her amazing vocabulary can somewhat be attributed to her role-model big sister who, to put it bluntly, never shuts up.  We love it, of course, and celebrate every new word.  While Kenzie's first words were mostly animal sounds, Kaia has mastered everything from "milk" and "more" to "diaper," "sister" and "rock" (both the noun and the verb).  I know, I know, enough of the blatant bragging.  I can't help it, I'm impressed.  She rocks.

It's hard to get all this on film.  Sorry for the poor quality of this video (it was night and the house was a bit dark) but I think this captures a little bit of the Kaia I've described.  This was on a rare night when she stayed up after Kenzie went to bed.  I think she was enjoying having the place to herself.

(P.S. She came back with the hat)

And, man, she can  climb.  If you enter our house at any given moment you are bound to find various chairs and toys tipped on their sides to deter Kaia from climbing on them.  She is constantly climbing onto the computer chair, standing, and rocking it back and forth on two legs.  She'll stand on a rocking chair or her rocking horse without holding on and she thinks it's so funny when we tell her to sit down.  The other night Dustin found her sitting on the dining room table.  She's crazy!  We've decide that instead of focusing our efforts on telling her not to climb, our time is put to better use if we teach her how to safely get down from whatever perch she may find herself.  We put the gate on the third stair so she can practice going up and down.  If she falls, it's better than falling from the top.

She's got good fine motor skills too.  She can use a fork or spoon independently (although yogurt is more worn than eaten) and can drink from a "big-girl cup" on her own.  She can push small buttons to make toys talk. She's understanding so much.  I can ask her to get something from another room and she has the attention span to go find it and bring it back.  She asks for sister ("didter, didter?")  if she's not around  and knows how to tell us when she needs something (including a diaper change).  She's also mastering the art of the temper tantrum.  Why is it innate to stomp ones feet when told no?

Kaia is such a joy.  I can't be down when she is near.  My heart is full.