And for my next trick I will ... drive a jeep!? Yes, our Rikki is at the age where she has a voracious appetite for everything new. She climbs into, touches, and talks to anything she comes across. I've stopped tracking her words because she hit the 100 mark a week or two ago. Every day new words come out of her mouth, and increasingly we don't even remember teaching them to her. One of her greatest fascinations now is the "belt". This includes the airplane seat belt, and the strap on her booster chair, which she can proudly buckle on her own, and of course the belt on the jeep (minor problem was that she could not reach the steering wheel with the belt on, so she consented to having it draped over her lap for show).
Her new favorite food is "gapes" but she also likes "blues." She loves to "walk" as well as climb the "steps", she asks for "num num" (food) almost constantly and calls for Olla (Olive) regularly. When we get near the end of a song she says "den" (again), and when she hears me wrapping up a phone call (that she can tell amazes me), she says "bye bye". And she says "pwease" with the smile of confidence that she has figured out how to get anything and everything she wants (almost). Today her newest word is "noise" because she heard me asking my mom about a sound in the house and started parading around saying "noise". She fell asleep in the car on the way to lunch, and when I woke her, she blurted it out: "noise".
When she is happy with one of her accomplishments, she does her little wiggle dance, and when she is in her car seat, and not sleeping, she likes to sing. We can't quite make out the lyrics, but she seems to know the tune.
Wishing everyone a happy new year!
