Minor Milestones

Eliza has hit a couple of milestones lately that are important enough to note here. First of all, she just had her half birthday a couple weeks ago. Happy half birthday to Eliza!


Hayden didn't quite understand the concept of a half-birthday, and was particularly upset that it didn't involve cake. I might try to do something special for half birthdays in the future, but we had just returned from our trip south, so there was no cake to be had. Hayden will survive, sans half birthday cake.

The second milestone is that she surpassed 100 words in her ever increasing vocabulary. She actually did it shortly after our trip south (that was a big trip in many ways apparently!) but life intervened in getting this post up. Now she's up to 116 words, adding more every day. What kind of words does she know, you may ask? The most recent additions to her word list include coat, fruit (pronounced "moot" by Eliza), story, and hurry. Other fun ones include "mo more" (one more), "mopmorn" (popcorn, even though she never gets to eat it!), "weet" (shredded wheat cereal) and rain.

She's also a very polite child. Thank you was one of her first words (though it didn't get recorded till #43 cuz we couldn't quite believe she was saying thank you.). She is very good at saying thank you after you give her something. She also says/signs please with regularity. She has recently started saying "bess oo" (bless you) after we sneeze. And she picked up sorry. I think I must create too many reasons to say sorry because the first instance I remember her saying it, I lightly bumped her leg against the door frame as I went into her room and SHE said sorry! She also says "nice" regularly to Hayden as in "be nice" since Hayden gets scolded about being kind to Eliza on a daily basis. (Why is it so fun to torture younger sibilings about their blankets? I remember hiding my sister's blanket all the time and Hayden loves to run away with Eliza's "gankie" (blankie)).

Eliza is also very food oriented, especially sweets. You can tell she's not a first child since her knowledge of words for sweets is extensive. She knows "no-nut" (donut), and cake, and cookie, and I think I heard her saying cupcake today (we had muffins for snack). I don't really think she gets that many treats; but apparently she picks up on them. Even ones she doesn't actually get to eat like popcorn or juice. Other favorite food words are pancake (signs this), cheese, milk, banana, strawberry, peach, apple, raisin, fish (for goldfish crackers) and even yogurt (signs and says this). Can you tell she likes fruit and dairy products?

no pictures while eating "fish" please!

Two other funny language notes with Eliza: one is her use of the words "hot" and "cold". She says them all the time, and is fairly accurate in assessing temperature - like an ice cube is cold, and a grilled cheese is hot. But she's also a bit extreme about using them. So if something came off of the stove, or out of the oven, no matter how long we let it cool, she will touch it and say "hot!" It doesn't usually slow her down in eating it, but she has to point out that it's hot. And she was taking a dropped ice cube to Blizzard's bowl and started saying cold! cold! over and over in a pained way but just stood there. She didn't seem to get that yes it was cold, so go get rid of it!

The second funny note is that she STILL doesn't say yes. For a while if you asked her a question, like do you want more whatever?, she would say no, even though she meant yes. She's a little less emphatic about saying no, but still doesn't say yes, even though it's quite clear (thru reaching, open mouth and grunting) that she does indeed want whatever you just asked her about.

talking on the "nown" (phone)

Anyway, that's about it with her language. She's not putting more than maybe two words together but she's definitely identifying LOTS of stuff and trying to make herself clear. She also still resorts to crying and feet stamping (so funny, the feet stamping) when she gets upset but she is learning to use words. It's such an amazing process to watch and attempt to document.

posing with Hayden and cousin Charlotte when Charlotte and Lacey were up to visit recently. E was fine with posing for pictures, but she refused to smile or change her expression.