What's new with Calla?

So I brought my laptop with me to the Memphis Automobile Inspection Station today. I was thinking I could catch up a bit on my Calla blogging. She is with me now, calmly sipping a blueberry smoothie while we wait in this endless line.

Calla had her fifteen month well baby visit last week. She was two ounces shy of twenty-eight pounds and 33 1/2 inches long. She's in the 90th percentile for both weight and height. As always she's healthy and doing great.

Calla has been focusing a lot of attention on words and signs for the last few months especially. Being me, and always having my iPhone handy, I had been keeping a list on my phone of her words. I'm about at the point of giving up on keeping track, now though. She can say so many words now and she's learning more than one a day at this point. Several words she uses without any prompting, and in correct context, but of course most of them she will say after being prompted for it.

I didn't realize until the open house for Bilingual Tots (where Calla will begin Spanish tomorrow) that Calla can be "taught" words. They taught her two Mandarin words and "hola" during open house. Now, I realize if I ask her to say a word, she usually can say it. Until now she was just picking up words from hearing them. My favorite word that she says is HAPPY. She learned it from watching the REM video for Shiny Happy People. :) She says it perfectly and it melts my heart whenever I hear her say it.

She's saying simple phrases now, too. Often they involve greetings ("Hi, Daddy!") or milk ("Milk. Mama. Milk milk milk. Go mama! Milk!").

She's also practically obsessed with the alphabet. My friend Yadi gave her a set of magnetic letters that sing the alphabet song and teaches phonics. Now when she sees a word, she points to each letter and says random letters. She can say most of the letters of the alphabet, but of course she doesn't really recognize them. She knows the sign for "a" though.


She has lots of signs now, too! In fact, I sometimes have a bit of trouble keeping up with her. She was signing "train" at the zoo (there is a little train that goes around the petting zoo/farm animals area), and I realized I had forgotten how to sign train. She seems to make up signs sometimes, too (unless these are other signs that I have forgotten!).

She is walking really well. She loves to dance and listen to music. She sings along with a few of her favorite songs. She still loves books. We read many books each day. She likes coloring now, too. I'm trying to prevent her from scribbling in her books, but I'm pretty sure they are all going to get scribbled on. And of course she still loves animals. A trip to the zoo is one of her most favorite activities.

She's using the potty less frequently now that she is mobile. Before she began walking, it wasn't unusual to have days with only one or two wet diapers (not counting overnight). Nowadays that would be unusual. She still poops on the potty almost always and pees in the potty more than once each day.

She still co-sleeps with us, but we're planning to sidecar her crib to our bed very soon. We're going to gradually start encouraging her to sleep independently, as long as it works out for everyone.

She's eating very well. Her favorite foods are cheese, yogurt, tomatoes, tofu, chicken and blueberry smoothies. We're still nursing, keeping in mind the World Health Organization's recommendation to breast feed at least until the age of two.

We're about three cars away from our inspection, and Calla is getting a bit impatient at this point, so I'll close for now. I hope to proof and post this later this afternoon when Ms. Aimee is at the house. Maybe I'll post my list of Calla's words, too.