Ethan Ruth Harper Jack

I was making a list of newish words that Harper now speaks, but it got lost somewhere. It was very long. I don't feel like recreating the list because it is very tough to keep track of all of them. Let me just say that she is able to communicate very clearly and even attempts many multi-syllabic words (tortilla, everywhere, brocolli, eyebrow to name a few). She always tries to say a word if we cue her with "Can you say _______?" and she understands when we're teaching her the label for an object. She also has a very good memory so she'll reuse the terms we've given her in other contexts as appropriate. All of this contributes to her extraordinarily large vocabulary.

The walking is tremendous. She's on her feet all the time now, getting faster but never out of Mama's sight. She's a cautious little thing. She wants to be right by my side all the time, which is convenient for keeping her safe and unharmed, but sometimes a bit tough because when it's not nap time, I'm expected to be performing and teaching and entertaining. With walking comes separation anxiety (typically) and Harper's no exception to this. She understands the concept of "bye bye" now, and she says it (verbally, and very clearly) to Dada daily. When he's not around, she asks for him, "Dada, bye bye?" with a questioning tone and her hands up. I have to explain to her that he's at "work" (another word she's recently learned) but that he's coming back. Sometimes (the separation anxiety, I guess) she'll get sad-looking and ask me, "Mama, bye bye?" and I have to reassure her that I'm not going anywhere. I feel very lucky that my girl is able to tell me when she's feeling insecure rather than just cry in the isolation that comes from not-being-understood.

We've begun to wean Harper, and I am sure this adds to the separation issues. We cut out the middle-of-the-day feeding and she had a conversation with me about it yesterday. Went like this: "Mama... ninnies... bye bye?" (For those outside my family, ninnies are boobs.) I said, "yes, bye bye ninnies. We'll have some ninnies later." I know she misses it because she talks a lot more about "ninnies" than she used to. I'm still nursing her right before bed, in the middle of the night, and first thing in the morning. The next feeding to remove will be the middle of the night, followed by the first thing in the morning, and then the before bed feeding. At least that's the plan.

Gotta run... more later! So much to catch up about-- I hear Harper waking from her nap!