Words, Words, and more Words

I can't believe how many words Marea has. Her vocabulary is exploding right now. She will often try to repeat just about anything I say. Pretty soon my little baby will be having a conversation with me. I'm going to miss all the baby babble.

What she doesn't have words for, she communicates in other hilarious ways. Such as, dragging her high chair across the room and running over to the refrigerator, pounding on it, stomping her foot and screeching....hmmm....think she's hungry?

The other monster we've created is her love for 'melmo'. So I let her watch Sesame Street in the mornings....what else am I supposed to do at 5:30 am when I can't even see yet? I let Elmo do the work! I can't believe it but I actually think Elmo is pretty cute. And Marea adores him too. She can spot that little red monster anywhere. It's suprising how much junk is out there in the world with Elmo on it. Right at her eye level. The cutest thing she does is sing the theme song. I hope I can get that on video.

Current Obsessions

There are a lot of fishies to point out at grandma and grandpa's house. Marea sees all of them and i'm seeing many of them for the first time myself. It's a pretty fun game. Marea says 'fishie', and I try to find it. The fishie pajamas are also a hit right now. Two mornings now have begun with a cheerful 'fishie' coming from the crib.
And who doesn't want their shoes on at 6 a.m.? Marea's other obsession right now is shoes. She loves putting on her own shoes and walking around the house, looking at her feet. But she's equally happy finding my shoes, or Gary's shoes, and bringing them over to us so we can put them on. "Mama shoe" and "Daddy shoe" can be heard several times throughout the day as she finds our shoes laying around the house.
Some other words she just loves repeating...cheese (favorite food), keys, car, NO, (actually it's 'no no no no no no') more (she's still signing it too, she does it over and over and over again repeating more more more!) down, pool (anytime she finds something pool related, such as our suits or towels, she'll say pool), jackie...she'll try to say just about anything these days. Hearing the little words come our of her mouth is just downright adorable. But then again, everything about her is absolutely adorable!
Pics....

Ball!

Marea is currently obsessed with anything round. She will happily point it out and exuberantly say, 'BALL'!

Some hilarious examples:

While investigating a roly poly bug in the backyard at grandma's house, she touches it and it rolled up into a 'BALL'!

While running like a manaic around the grocery store, she sees a pack of blueberries and happily (and longingly) exclaims 'BALL'!

While driving down the street, from the backseat we hear, 'BALL BALL BALL', and then the search is on for mommy and daddy...where is the ball? On this particular occasion i'm thinking of, it was the balloons in front of the car dealership.

And Grandma Craig has a whole tree of 'BALLS' in the back yard. Finding one on the ground is a guaranteed 'BALLLLLLLL!'

Here's some pictures from another fun day where the word of the day was 'FISHIE'!

Beeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee!

Marea's favorite thing to say is 'Beeeeeeeee'. Over and over again. I think she says it when she's content and in a good mood, just playing around. It's something she just says to herself when she's being a busy beeeeeeeee.

The past few days she's really started babbling a lot. As if she's having a full conversation with us. She'll string long 'sentences' together. She's also getting really good at repeating words, or at least trying to. Sometimes they come out so clear it's unreal. The other day in the bathtub she put (what sounded like) three words together...gary and i can't remember what they were but it was so clear....and for a second i just looked at her and thought, oh my god...pretty soon my baby is going to be talking and she's going to have all these things to say! We'll be having two-sided conversations! It was almost like a wierd glimpse into the future...just to keep me on my toes. So i'm making a point to teach her more words now. I've always talked to her a ton throughout the day...mostly to save my own sanity...but now i'm picking easy words and associating them with objects and repeating. It's just a matter of time.

She still does the babbling into our cell phones all the time. It's definitely still a favorite activity. Her babbling actually resembles how we must sound when we're on the phone. It's not sing-songy, more like brief little statements with pauses and everything.

Yesterday while hanging outside by her pool, she repeatedly got out, walked over to her sunscreen bottle, touched it and then pretended to rub it all over herself. It was really funny.

Yum...a lemon!

Little Miss MORE

Well I'm happy to report that the sign language class was a success...if I continue to use it on a regular basis I know the Little Miss would pick it up really easily. Unfortunately, I haven't been using it too much so her 'vocabulary' isn't very big. But she does use one sign CONSTANTLY...and it's MORE MORE MORE MORE MORE! Not only does she sign MORE, but she also says MORE when she's signing it. And whatever it is....mostly food, but also anything she wants, she signs and says more over and over again. It's absolutely hilarious.


What Marea always wants the most of is blueberries. The child absolutely loves them. It's practically an obsession.

Summertime Fun in the Sun!

Well we've made our move back to So. Cal. and so far it's proving to be an extremely good decision! Marea (and her mom and dad) is having a blast playing with all of her family and friends. A quick recap of what we've been up to so far...i've really been lagging on this post!

We kicked off our start here with Marea's First Birthday party. We almost kicked her out of the family when she wouldn't eat the cake! What's up with that? I can't believe our baby turned one. It has absolutely been the most wonderful and intense year of my life and I can't believe a whole year has gone by so quickly.


Then it was off to Mazatlan for a week of fun in the sun. Marea loved the ocean, the pool, tacos and sand. Mom and dad love beachside bar service and having help from cousin Lauren. And it was awesome spending time with Auntie Sam and Uncle Robby....we always end up getting treated like royalty when we're with them. The penthouse suite with our very own pool was fantastic....for Marea to skinny dip in. A good time was had by all.





We just returned from Marea's first camping trip, we headed out to El Capitan State Beach in Santa Barbara. We somehow didn't pack the tent poles so we ended up renting a posh 'tent cabin' at a very nice upscale campground. We had beds, clean sheets and towels, nice bathrooms with showers, maid service and lots of other fancy amenities. Marea was the campground rooster, waking each day in her usual good mood which involves lots of happy screeching and babbling. Marea enjoyed the freedom of wandering outside. I suppose the universe was telling us something by setting us up for success this time around. Next time we're doing the real tent thing!

Updates

Marea's top 4 teeth are coming in. The two middle haven't poked thru yet but I can see bulges, and the two side ones have poked through. Hopefully they'll all come thru together so is doesn't look like she has fangs. She's been doing great in spite of this!


It also seems like she's working on her language, big time. She chatters away constantly, not the old sing-song stuff she used to do, but more like she's trying to communicate. She mostly does it when she's engrossed in something, like playing with her toys, picking flowers or rocks out in the yard, or playing telephone (which seems to be a favorite game right now). She pretty vocal in the car too, but experiments more with silly sounds and screaching then. So far she can say 'ball', 'bye' (waves and says 'bye' to daddy every day, even before he's gone), 'cow' (she says 'ow') and 'rock'. She probably says a lot more than these but this is what i've picked up on so far. I know she's listening and trying, so i'm making a point out of repeating words and saying things correctly.


One word that I need to teach her is 'help'. Her current version of help is a high pitched scream. She is really curious and determined these days, so when things don't go her way, its no secret.


Another favorite game right now is when I throw blankets and pillows on the ground and she rolls all over them. She likes it when I join her for that one. Very cute indeed.


All in all, she's just way too cute and super fun. I get sad when she has to go to bed at night. Sometimes I wish the fun could just go on and on. From what i've heard, this ride just keeps getting better and better. What could be better than that?