Anyway, it seems like once Olivia hit one, the light bulb literally turned on for her. She started walking "officially" the day after turning 13 months. She picked it up FAST. She's already attempting to run!
The other thing she picked up on was TALKING! She had around 20 words at 13 months, and now at (just a few days shy of) 15 months she has OVER 50 words. She literally adds new words every day. And by words, I mean words that she actually knows what they mean and associates them with a correct item, emotion, or an appropriate phrase. She copies things we say all the time. I don't count those words though, because she is just parroting us and not knowing what she is saying.
For the sake of looking back and remembering, I am going to list the words that she currently uses.
- Mama
- Boppa--what she calls Michael
- Go Go (Little Man)
- Hi
- Bye Bye
- All gone/All done
- Uh Oh
- Yes
- No--she says this when she is doing something she knows she is not suppose to, but she also uses the exclamation "Oh no!" often. It's pretty cute! :)
- Whoa! and also Wow!
- Stinky--when she has a dirty diaper, she plugs her nose (or attempts to) and says stinky
- toes
- nose
- roar--when she sees a lion she knows that it says roar and she makes the sound appropriately
- hoot hoot--Michael taught her that her stuffed owl says hoot hoot. She now says this for every owl she sees.... including the owl on the shirt in Babies R Us. It took me a minute to figure out what she saw and that she was making it's sound. Pretty smart, huh?
- oink-it's more like a snort from her nose, but it's her pig sound and her favorite sound to make when she sings e-i-e-i-o
- moo-for a cow, obviously
- blueberry
- watermelon--she sometimes calls other fruits watermelon. She also recognizes the bowl that I put the watermelon in and now says watermelon! when she sees it. It's one of her favorite fruits!
- row row--for row row row your boat
- twinkle--for twinkle twinkle little star (and she does hand motions)
- E-I-E-I-O- for old mcdonald
- itsy bitsy- she sort of does this for itsy bitsy spider, although it's one of the more unclear words she says
- round and round--for the wheels on the bus, with hand motions (Can you tell this kid likes music?)
- up
- ball
- book
- she makes the "nom nom" sound with pretend food. She saw us do it once and now she does it when she pretend eats, or she puts the food up to our mouth and makes the noise
- Mickey Mouse (me mou)
- Elmo
- nice--back a few months ago when she would swing her arms around and sometimes "hit" I would say, "we be nice" and then I would stroke her hand on my face and say "nice". Now she does it to us and says "nice" or she does it to her dolls/stuffed animals. She also does it to herself if she hears us use the word nice. When she sees other kids she strokes there face and says nice. :) I suppose it's better than the alternative!
- night night
- milk--this is one of the only words that doesn't actually sound like the word. We know what she is saying, but for whatever reason she calls it something like "ga" ?!?
- tickle-she makes the tickle tickle sound and tries to tickle herself to show us she wants us to tickle her
- baby
- snack
- thank you
- yay! and yeah
- peek-a-boo (which is usually just shortened to boo)
- bow-she knows what her bows are called. She takes it out of her hair and then exclaims "OH NO!" then she hands it back to me and says "bow"
- cookie
- shoe
- more--this started off as a sign for more food. Then she started signing and saying more. We also learned the signs to the song "the more we get together" at the library, so she does it for that too. She also signs and says more if she wants us to keep doing something...like read the book again, etc
- open-this is one of her newest words. She has a box that holds little board books and she always wants me to open it. I taught her open and she picked it up almost immediately. Now she carries the box over to me and says open...then closes it and says "open". Rinse and repeat. :)
- ok
- Wheeeee---she learned this at MOPS and now does it when she plays with her beads or purposely falls off of her chair (which she thinks is funny)
- water
- banana-another one of the few words that doesn't exactly sound like what they are, but I know what it is because she says it every single time she sees a banana (both real and toy)
- good girl
- love you--Ok, this one might be more of a parroted word, because I don't think she understands the concept of what saying "love you" means, but she does say it back to us now
- paci--this is one word I was hoping to avoid learning! :) I don't want her begging for it when we take them away.
- nakie- now I am a big proponent of not using baby talk and teaching the proper words. However, I do have to take responsibility for this one. Whenever I would change her, I would pat her belly and say "Look at that nakie baby" or something along those lines. Now when I take her shirt off, she pats her belly and says nakie. The other day I went into her room to get her and I had just gotten out of the shower. I was half dressed, but my belly was still bare and she patted it and said "Nakie!" :)
- doggie-I didn't even know that she knew this one until yesterday. We were at a friend's house two weeks ago and they had a dog. We told her it was a doggie. Then I was walking through the store yesterday and she kept saying "oggie! oggie! oggie". Since we don't have a dog, nor do we have dog toys, I didn't immediately know what she was saying. I looked up to where she was looking and sure enough, there was a huge stuffed dog. How she remembered doggie, I have no idea. She must have inherited my freak of nature memory!
- come on--she hears me say this a lot :)
Oh, and I had someone say to us, "Your mom says you say 40 words now. Talk!" She doesn't talk on demand. She also isn't some child prodigy. Just because she knows 40 (or 50) words does not mean she is stringing them together into meaningful sentences. She says them when they are applicable. You'd think people with children would know that, right?
