Just to document (mainly for me), Shaelyn has really blossomed over the last two or three weeks, with an exploding vocabulary and love for singing. She has an excellent memory and has all her DVDs, favorite books, and songs memorized and sings/talks about them all day. She is now using three word sentences like "my knee hurt" or "Mommy come sit" and constantly shocks us with how observant she is. She now knows all her letters, colors, numbers up to 10 by looking at them and up to 14 by counting, and shapes. She is one sharp cookie and has never been more fun. Since she turns 2 next month, I think it's safe to say I'm going to like being a mom of a 2-year-old even more than I liked being a mom of a 1-year-old.
Here's her funnies for the month:
Shaelyn loves to dance. One of her favorite songs is "Hey Ya" by Outkast because she loves the ending where they tell you to "shake it like a Polaroid picture". Here she is shaking it like she always does, but with a new development. I seriously had the hardest time holding the camera steady because I was shaking I was laughing so hard. And yes, she now does this every time she hears this song:
On Election Tuesday, Michael prayed for the vote in our family prayer. Shaelyn thought he said "boat" and started signing boat. She then started singing "boat, boat, stays afloat, ride the waves high and low" from Signing Time. So much for reverent family prayer.
More "Shaelyn/Daddy activities": WWF wrestling. Shaelyn never ceases to amaze me with her excellent sense of balance. And Michael never ceases to amaze me with how much abuse he can take (granted, she is only 22 pounds...):
Maggie is known as the "devil cat" among our family. She's really sweet with me, Michael, and Shaelyn, but HATES anyone else who comes in to our house. She hisses and growls whenever we have visitors, especially overnight visitors. (Sorry to anyone who has ever been an overnight visitor at our house.) Shaelyn knows that kitties "meow", but she has obviously learned this new form of kitty communication. She was playing her Fisher-Price ABC game, and in the game "I" is for "iguana". The iguana makes a hissing noise, and when Shaelyn heard it, she said "kitty cat". Maggie's teaching her well.
Speaking of the kitty, Shaelyn now calls her "kitty cat" and "Naggie". She loves to follow and chase her, and today wanted to get her attention. So she started saying "kitty, kitty, kitty" in this real sing-songy voice. When Maggie wouldn't acknowledge her, Shaelyn started going "meow, meow, meow". Betcha didn't know Shaelyn is fluent in cat.
Shaelyn now says "cheese" for most pictures when she sees the camera come out. She learned this from Clara. Here's documented evidence of the first time Shaelyn ever said "cheese", which as you will see is a result of Clara saying it first. I love these two girls playing together. (By the way, Shaelyn has figured out how to climb out the windows of her playhouse. You see the beginnings of that accomplishment in this video as well.):
The results of "cheese"
This month has been the month of "bye-bye"s. Shaelyn says bye to everything - when she leaves a room, when she stops doing an activity, when something gets turned off, you get the idea. I frequently hear "bye-bye lights (wights)" when the lights are turned off, or "bye-bye colors (cuh-luhz)" when she's done coloring. But today was the best. We turned off her "colors" Signing Time that teaches all the signs for colors of the rainbow. The song in this part of the video goes:
Do you know the colors of the rainbow?
Do you know the colors of the rainbow?
There's red, orange, yellow, green, purple, and blue.
Now you know the colors of the rainbow, too.
Shaelyn has all these words and signs memorized, and sings it constantly throughout the day. But today she says, "bye-bye colors, bye-bye rainbow, bye-bye red, bye-bye orange, bye-bye yellow, bye-bye green, bye-bye purple, bye-bye blue, bye-bye colors, bye-bye rainbow, bye-bye too". You can't say she isn't thorough...
As you saw in the "shake it" video, Shaelyn now has a "singing face" that she uses any time she sings a song. And she now loves to sing, so she uses it all the time. It looks just like the face she makes in "shake it". She just opens her mouth long and skinny, and lets out whatever note comes to her. Especially in church when everyone else is singing. She should be in the choir. She would at least be entertaining.
A version of the singing face
And speaking of singing, Shaelyn has recently started singing real songs, all by herself. She knows most of the words and even the tunes. I love hearing her sing. It's like it came out of no where, because one day she never sang, and the next day she was singing whole concertos, but I think these songs were always in her head, and she just now figured out how to get them out. One of her favorites is "Twinkle, Twinkle Little Star". She sings it all the time, even when the accompaniment is not the tune of "Twinkle, Twinkle Little Star". My favorite part is that she waits until the end to sing "what you are", no matter how long the song is and how many times she has to sing "how I wonder" before the tune ends. (And yes, she's signing the song as well):
We went from teeth brushing time being an all out catastrophe and full-on wrestling match each time to it being one of Shaelyn's favorite times of the day. I have to give Michael full and total credit for this one. He came up with the method all on his own. Our first item of business was to get Shaelyn her own electric toothbrush. It took 3 days for her to even hold it while it was turned on, and another 3 for her to actually put it in her mouth. But I was persistent. I figured moving bristles up against any teeth was better than what she was allowing us to do, so we went for it. And then Michael had a breakthrough: "aaaahhhh" and "eeeeeeee". I don't know how he got her to do it, but somehow he was able to get her to open her mouth wide and say "aaaaahhhh" and actually let him put the toothbrush in her mouth. Once he got the chewing surfaces of all her teeth, he then enticed her to say "eeeeeeee" and was able to get the front surfaces of all her teeth. One or two more rounds of this = all teeth surfaces get brushed. And she loves it. Today she asked to use her toothbrush by herself, and since it wasn't a "parent needs to brush your teeth time", I let her. She told herself to "say aaaaahhhhh" and then said "aaaaahhhhh!" very loudly. Then said, "say eeeee" and did that as well. Finally she said, "one more time (un muh time)" and aaaaahhhhh'ed again. She's good at following her own directions.
Andrea, can you believe it? It's a miracle!! (We'll see how long it lasts...)
One of Michael's many "honey-do" projects was to build and paint some wooden rocking chairs my mom bought for us this summer. Yes, it's taken us this long to get them, and yes, it took 3 straight days to paint, paint, paint, paint, and lacquer the chairs, but they are finally done and look great! Shaelyn loves them too, and is so cute trying to rock herself in them, because it makes her violently move her head back and forth to get enough momentum to even rock them:
And of course we had to document her eating her very first sandwich - peanut butter and honey - willingly, and finishing it! What a big girl!
Everything tastes better when you eat it on a Princess Couch
