13 Months

Samantha is now 13 months old. No longer a baby. Definitely a toddler. With one and a half teeth :-) She is learning and doing new things all the time now, and it's hard to keep up! Literally and figuratively. While she is still not walking on her own, Sam cruises easily around the furniture, and regularly pulls herself up to stand by the TV stand, the kitchen chairs or the coffee table. She can stand on her own steadily for a good minute or so, and turn while standing to take a step toward us, but always holds out her hand for us to help her. Not quite ready to do it herself just yet! She can now hold onto the coffee table, etc, and bend down to pick up a dropped toy from the floor, and can also climb all the way up the stairs. Luckily, she is not quite so brazen as to do this without someone right behind her, but I'm sure that will happen soon enough!

She has discovered that she can make her desires known by pointing and doing this adorable "come here" hand movement. If she wants us to read her one of her books, she will pick it up and hold it out to us or drop it in our laps. She loves her books, and we read her favorites over and over and over :-) She also is truly beginning to display an understanding of what we say to her. She will look for Gigi when I ask her "Where's Gigi?," or take a drink from her sippy cup if I ask her to take another sip of milk, etc. She loves to turn off the lights when we leave a room, and delights in dumping out her blocks and then picking them up and putting them back in the box.

She recently started saying "thank you," although it sounds more like "dak u" when you pass her a toy, and regularly says "bye bye," "bow" and her own generalized 'ball/book/toy' word, along with "oooohhh" when something falls or makes a noise. She's not really into animal sounds, but loves to point at the pictures of owls in two of her books, so I'm trying to teach her how to say "Who cooks for you?!" Ha :-)

Of course, it's not all rainbows and candy, as she no longer stays still for diaper changes and squirms all over the place, has realized that she can voice her displeasure dramatically when not getting what she wants, loves to drop food on the floor from her high chair or ooze her milk/water/yogurt out of her mouth and then turn and smile at us, and is currently teething. But, as always, she is cute :-)

In the rocking chair