Premier Anniversaire! (First Birthday!)

What you do as a one year old:

• Clap your hands to cheer (noted at the Twins game!) and for songs (If you're happy and you know it...)
• Say 'touchdown' and lift your hands over your head
• Blow kisses (with a loud Mwwahh for effect).
• Recognize yourself (and other babies!) as 'L'.  It is SO cute hearing you say your name when you see yourself in the mirror.
• When we ask "Where is L?" you point to yourself.  You can also identify the dog, mama and dada (both mama and dada only some of the time.).

• Point at everything!
• Wave Hi and Bye
• Crawl all over (started at around 10 months)

• Pull yourself up to standing on most things (starting to stand without holding on for brief periods of time).  When you first started standing you would start to fuss/cry because you couldn't figure out how to sit back down!
• You are fascinated with water, you recognize it in many different forms (in a lake, bathtub, river, dog dish, cup, in a picture, a painting, etc) and sign excitedly when you see it.  This translates well to bath time, which you love, but not to swimming in pools, which you hate.
• You LOVE dogs and cats, your favorite books are those where you can see dogs and cats, point to them and say their name with their sign.
• You like to sit on rocking horses, wagons and other ride-along toys.

• You can find your head, ear, eyes, nose, mouth, foot/toes, belly button when asked.  You also like to point to all of these things on others when asked "where is ___'s ____?'
• You help us get you dressed (pushing arms through shirts, holding legs nicely to put on pants, etc), although you dislike having your diaper changed and more often than not complain/whine during this process.
• You love to carry things in your mouth while crawling.
• You are great at finding mulch, dog toy fluff (after the dog destroys a toy) and other little pieces of garbage and handing them  to an adult. 

• You like to yell, and have someone yell back (Ahhh....Ahhhh, etc.) this could go on for 10 minutes at least and you smile the entire time.  It's not so cute when we try to take you to a nice restaurant and you decide the 'yelling game' will be a good idea...maybe not the best 'game' for us to teach you? 
• You like to play chasing games "I'm going to get you, etc"  You laugh and laugh when someone 'gets you' or when you 'get' daddy especially!
• You have started trying to startle us by roaring/yelling at us.  Your dad started doing this to you, and you have now started to do it back to him.
• All things Roxy: hiding in the dog kennel, petting, trying to eat (gross...can't believe I'm admitting this) dog food when we forget to put it up (we always catch you and make you spit it out), or splashing in her water dish...

L dancing at her Auntie S's wedding. Photo Credit to Emme Photo Design
• You love to dance, you recognize the OMG song by Usher as a dancing with daddy song and look for him to pick you up and dance whenever you hear it.  You do a cute side to side head wiggle when you are dancing.
• You have a funny bottom scoot that you use if the distance is fairly short instead of crawling. You use your legs in front of you to pull your bottom forward until you get to your destination.
• You like to be thrown up in the air, startled/scared and anything else thrilling or exciting.  You laugh and ask for more.
• When you were under 6 months old, we could do anything, go anywhere with you, no schedule needed.  Now you need to be home before nap/bedtime and need limited distractions when nursing (you are easily distracted and like to look around!)
  
  
  Sign Language:
• Dog
• Cat
• Dada (daddy)
• Water
• More
• Milk
• Ball

Spoken Language:

• No (you say this more than anything else, usually multiple times in a row, No, No, No!)  You are getting more creative; dragging out different sounds Noooo, NNNNNoo, etc)
• Dog (usually said as Dog-Dog)
• Roo Roo Roo (What does the dog say?)
• Cat
• Dodo (Fais Dodo is go to sleep in French) This is how she asks for me to sing the lullaby Fais Dodo
• River
• Seriously (seriously...she really says this!  ;-) )
• Night-Night
• Hi
• Mama
• Dada