Jane Update

Jane turned 18 months old last month, and it seems like awhile since I've said much about her.  So here's a blog post all about what's going on with her lately and what she's learning and doing.

Jane loves to share our cereal.
Or pretty much anything we are eating.

In early July her language skills exploded and she learned a bunch of new words and about a million animal sounds all in one week.  We found a video on Youtube where they do a little animal sounds song, and she went crazy for it and started doing all the sounds with the song.  Now she knows the song better than I do.  A couple of days ago I was trying to sing it for her while changing her diaper, and I kept forgetting what came next.  Jane would fill me in.  It was scary.  I'd sing, "The cow goes moo, moo moo moo, and the... uh..." and Jane would say, "qack qack!!" which is literally what comes next in the song.  Brilliant.

Jane massacres a nectarine

Speaking of videos, Jane could care less about TV, but she goes nuts for youtube music videos.  Favorites include The Wiggles, Twinkle Twinkle Little Star, Sesame Street, and Ok Go.  You know who Ok Go is, right?  A rock band?  Let's just say Jane's tastes are eclectic.  They have a video with a ton of dogs running around that Jane is absolutely mesmerized by.  She yells "woof woof!" at the dogs intermittently.  The first time we watched it she giggled and giggled and giggled through the whole thing.  I now have a playlist on youtube called "songs my baby likes" and it pretty much rocks.

In July Jane also had swim lessons, which were pretty much parents holding their kids in different positions in the water and singing songs.  But Jane loved it.  And I found out that the little curls at the base of her neck are still curly even when sopping wet!  Like, just-came-out-of-the-water wet, and she's got ringlets.

Jane loves to sit in this chair and peruse her library
When I took this picture she was saying, "Moo!"

Jane also continues to love books and reading.  She loves to grab a book and come plop down in my lap and insist that I read to her that second.  She especially loves books with animals so she can tell me what sounds they make.  Jane has also started to get the knack of puzzles and loves to move objects from one container to another (one favorite container is my lap).  She also loves going outside and can now literally help me water the plants with her tiny watering can, which is adorable.  She still plays hide-and-go-seek, except now she runs out from behind objects at full speed and throws herself against my legs when I find her.

Last week, Jane started calling me mommy... consistently.  Because she was calling me "Daddy" pretty often before that.  But at some point she realized that I should be called "Momma" all the time, and now she comes up and says it in a whimpery voices while wrapping her arms around my legs, or when I walk into a room, or when she's saying bye to me.  So, yeah, I am pretty much putty in her hands right now.  Also, yesterday she started saying, "Oh no!" in a really concerned, sad voice whenever she drops something on the floor.

In Daddy news, Michael had a birthday last month.  He is passionate about movies right now, so I spent the months before his birthday stockpiling several movies for him, and on his birthday I hid them all around the house and made him do a scavenger hunt to find them.

I don't think I've seen him so excited on a birthday before.  That was pretty fun.

We've also been busy with lots of company recently, which has been fun for Jane to meet so many new people.  Her game plan is to pretend she's shy for the first 15 minutes, and then run around screaming like a crazy wild baby and fling herself into her ball pit like it's home base.  It's hilarious after you get over the initial shock.

Jane's friend Cannon - two months older than her.

Sharing her farm animal puzzle.

 Ok that's all the details I can think of right now.  I have a bunch of cute videos of her doing baby stuff, but I think I'll put them on her "Days with Jane" blog in a few days for grandparents who are interested (you know who you are).