New Accomplishments

Kaydence is beginning to show her age in more ways than one.  I'm a basket of emotions when I think about all the fun new things she is doing...it is bitter sweet.  My baby is growing up! 

Confession:  I was that mom who vowed she would not allow her child to watch tv until the age of 2, as recommended by the AAP.  Well, I've officially failed.  Explaination:  I always wanted to teach Kaydence sign language to be able to communicate with us before she could talk.  When she was 6 1/2 months old, I was searching youtube for signs, but then remembered a friend telling me about the "Baby Signing Time" dvds.  I picked one up from the library and Kaydence was instantly hooked.  Not to mention, her mama had fun learning the signs and singing the songs with her.  Her favorite song on the first dvd is the "Diaper Dance" -- she gets a huge smile on her face and dances all around...it's so cute.  She has volumes 1 and 2 and she has worn.them.out...she loves them!  I failed I tell you, I failed!!!  ::sigh::  More confessions:  She watched Seasame Street for the first time today while I got ready.  Yep, no tv until 2 is officially out the window. 

All that to say, since Kaydence was 7 months old, we've been working on teaching her sign language (and using the Baby Signing Time dvds as a tool) and she is starting to catch on.  She has been signing "dog," "more," and "all done" for a couple months now.  Well, yesterday and today she did two new signs, "signing" and "milk."  Yesterday, I was singing/signing the theme song to Baby Signing Time and she did the sign for "signing" -- it was so cute!  Then today, I usually nurse her after her nap and when I got her up from her nap today, she was doing the sign for milk.  I was sooo excited!  My baby is growing up!  We're trying to work on "water," "eat," "please," and "thank you" right now.  She has done the sign for thank you already, but I don't think she knows what it means yet.  It's so exciting seeing her learning how to communicate with us.

On that note, she is also communicating in another way.  Temper tantrums.  They aren't bad yet, but they are starting.  Whenever we take something away that she shouldn't have, or if we tell her not to touch something, she gets very dramatic and starts to cry crocodile tears and stiffens her entire body and sometimes she'll just crumble to the ground.  I think we're going to have some challenges ahead of us. 

I'm sure there are some other fun things she has been doing lately that I'm missing, but it's late and I need to go to bed.  So I leave you with a video I took today.  It's not a great video, but it's something.  I was hoping she would show everyone how she signs "Baby Signing Time" but of course she didn't...mama had the camera. ;-)  I'll try to get it on video soon.  Another thing she has been doing more of is talking.  She does it a little in the video.

Oh, almost forgot, she is walking around really well now (which you'll see in the video) and she is also talking a lot more. She actually said "shoe" today. :-)