Alex Updates

Watermelon...Yummmmy.

My favorite things about Alex lately are:

• Hearing her say "Uh-OH!" But instead, she says DOE-DOE, (as in, stop acting like a silly dodo, Daddy?) 
• Watching her use baby sign language to communicate.  Her favorite sign is "More!", as in "Give me MORE ice cream, Mommy!"  And, "I want to stay in the bath MORE!" And just when I think she doesn't really understand what it means,  she signs "ALL DONE!" Sometimes she signs "all done" when she hasn't even tried it.  Like tonight at dinner, when I tried to feed her zucchini, she promptly spit out the 1st bite and signed "All done!" No confusion there!  She also signs "milk" (which on a side note, does anyone else think the sign language for milk is hilarious? It looks like you are literally milking a cow, and something about it makes me giggle every time!) and she waves hello, goodbye, claps her hand (while saying YAYYYY!) and blows kisses.  How amazing it is to see this smart little baby learn things!
• Seeing her WALK! Oh yeah, I forgot to blog about that! She took her first steps to me on June 14, just a few days before her 1st birthday! She hasn't really taken off too much since then, but she is getting more and more confident lately.  She walks for a little while, then switches to crawling so she can go faster.  
• Receiving kisses from her.  Every now and then she decides that we need a kiss, so she will gently lean in and plant one right on us! She tries to make the "Muah" noise, but she can't get it quite right because she doesn't pucker her lips.  So she keeps her mouth totally open and still sucks in....hard to describe, but it is so funny.  And then after she kisses you, she will get the biggest smile on her face, like "Look what I just did!"
• Rocking her at night.  I was so proud of our little baby who would fall asleep every night when I would put her in her crib awake.  And then about six months ago, I started rocking her a little each night before I put her in the crib, not because she needed it, but because I needed it! (Not that it would be bad if she did need it, I just liked that she was such a good sleeper!) She doesn't actually fall asleep when I rock her, but it is the sweetest part of the day for us; she just cuddles up and we rock in her dark room for a few minutes.  When she has had her fill, she sits up in my lap and points to the crib, as if to say, "Ok, Mommy, it's time for bed, don't you know?!"
• When we ask her "Where's Mommy?" she taps her own chest.  Then we realized the reason is because after I say, "Where's Mommy?" I tap my chest, so of course she is just imitating me.  Rich pointed this out the other day and we just died laughing about it, because it never occurred to us that was the reason.  Then we started having Rich point to me (instead of me pointing to myself) and she finally realized it!  So funny.  Now she knows how to point to Daddy, Mommy and Alex! 
• Watching her figure out how things work.  I saw her in my closet this morning trying to put on my high heels.  It's not like they look anything like the shoes that she wears, and I haven't ever consciously put them on in front of her, but she obviously was watching at some point, because she put them on each foot, and then proceeded to try and STAND up in them.  Pretty funny stuff.