Walking Chicken

Here's some videos I uploaded to YouTube recently.
They aren't the best quality, but at least you can see Sadie in action.


Sadie is walking!
We saw her take a few steps here and there a couple of times while sitting in the living room. Then one morning Peter and I were talking in the bathroom and all of a sudden here comes Sadie walking down the hall!
She's still hanging on to crawling for dear life but she's walking more and more everyday. I kind of thought by the end of last week, she would have been over crawling and completely walking, but I was wrong.

Sadie is very cautious, which I have been told, so was Peter as a kid. She's constantly looking around to make sure someone is there to watch her or that it's safe to go forward with her plan.
When we were at the park the other day, Sadie finally got up the nerve to climb up the play structure so that we could slide down the slide.
She would only climb the steps if I was behind her and she didn't go to the top until I was there waiting for her.
We slid down the slide together a few time and then we started going side by side which was so much more fun!
I still can't get over how much she hates the swing. Cries and yells every time I put her in it!

I was always teased by my family for talking a lot when I was a kid and I think Sadie is going to have the same problem. It's so exciting when we hear a word we recognize.
Here are some of her words-
Mana = banana
Meenow = a cat meowing
Pop Pop = started out with Hop on Pop, when I would say "hop on pop" she repeated "pop pop pop" Now she points to her Pop Pop in a picture and says his name
Gassess = glasses, which she hates and rips off our faces any chance she gets.
zis = what is this?
Dayee = daddy
mama = duh!
sayee = Sadie
bah = ball
She repeats what we say and knows her body parts too. What a smart chicken! (I know, I know, all babies do this, but ours is better than yours, didn't you know?)

After I get Sadie off of crawling and on to walking I think we're going to go for potty training.
She's already sitting on her potty before a bath and some other times. Lately, though
she's been going over to her rocking chair and sitting in it when she has to poo.
This is funny and worth mentioning because, she will suddenly disappear and we can hear her grunting from the corner. It used to happen in the corner by the door to the patio. Then she discovered her chair.

When we were in Arizona, my great aunt and uncle gave Sadie a stuffed monkey. It has been by her side ever since. She added a giraffe into the mix and for a long time she had to have each one in her grip in order to go to sleep.
Until one morning. I went into get her and she was yelling at the giraffe. I don't mean talking loudly, I mean YELLING. She handed me the giraffe and said "no" while shaking her head and using hand gestures. I thought she was just talking crazy so I put the giraffe on her chair for later. Once out of the crib, she threw the giraffe off the chair, shook her and waved her hands while saying "no." And that, my friends was the end of that. Giraffe has not been allowed in the crib since.
We have no idea what happened. There were a series of replacements, most of them just rebounds. Baby joined the party about a week ago and looks to be holding strong. Monkey remains the steady, steady though. Sometimes we have Brown Bear, sometimes we have Pop. There have been times when I am trying to rock Sadie to sleep either for a nap or at night and there are so many dolls on top of us. To top it all off, we have to have her pink blanket somewhere there too.
In the morning, we can hear Sadie talking to her dolls. It's pretty much one of the only times where she will actually play alone for an extended period of time.

Both Peter and I read to Sadie all the time. She has books all over the apartment. At night we read together the three of us. Peter is way better at it than I am because he makes funny voices and ad-libs. I tend to read the stories as they are written and all my voices sound the same even if I'm trying to make them sound different.
We have several books in heavy rotation and let me tell, I think we can recite almost ALL of them with our eyes closed. Sometimes I start to fall asleep while reading to her. After the third time reading through a book in a row, it's sort of hard not to!
It's always amazing to me when Sadie remembers a sound or part of a book before we turn the page to that part.



enjoy!
xoxo

april/may 2009