14 Months

As I've said before, Paige has entered this exciting phase where she is developing so quickly that we can hardly keep up. She plays hide and go seek with her daddy, gets a devilish grin and runs away when I ask her if I can change her diaper (obviously my mistake), and is saying and signing a whole host of words. She is trying to work out how to run at the moment, and I feel like I can almost see all of the little neurons in her brain firing away.

A friend of hers gave her a watering can for her birthday and one of Paige's favorite activities is to fill it with water and water the plans on the deck. She brings the can to me and says "agua." I help her hold the can and she waters the plants, she is clearly her father's daughter.

On the potty training front, she is almost fully there. I ordered her some training pants that I'm hopeful will help her get over the last hump of peeing and telling me simultaneously that she has to go. When we have her at home she is generally without a diaper, and only pees on the floor maybe once a day, if that.

Still no crawling, although now when I ask her to crawl to me she gets on to all fours and stay there for a second before either trying to stand up or flopping onto her belly. Baby steps I guess.

She Is Talking!

Due to a sad chain of events, Paige had to end care with her nanny Zoila and her friend Silver. However, we feel extremely fortunate to have found an incredible new nanny and a wonderful new family for Paige to spend 3 days a week with. The little boys name is Isaac, and Paige LOVES him. He is very sweet with her, and they have a great time. Paige's new nanny is extremely observant and within minutes was signing with her and helping her with exercises to learn to pull herself up to standing. She has also been wonderful about the potty training. Overall, we feel pretty lucky. The other incredible thing that has happened, is that Paige has begun talking, signing a wide variety of words, and playing games we had no idea she was capable of playing.

At 13 months, she has about 15 words she uses on her own including "in" "out" "up" "get down" "all done" "good night (na-night)" "mama" "dada" "agua" "gato" and others I am not thinking of right now. She signs several other words like butterfly, shoes, socks, sleep, milk, eat, more, all done, music and star. Isaac plays a game where he is a scary monster and everyone pretends to be scared of the monster. After two weeks of being in care with Isaac, Paige is playing the same game where she is a scary monster and then also likes to act scared by putting her hands on her cheeks and screaming. She is also saying Isaac's name and playing hide and go seek with him.

I like to think it has not been all one sided. Isaac didn't have any interest in potty training before he and Paige started care together. It seems Paige has changed that. The two of them sit side by side on their potties. Very sweet.

We Made It Through A Year!

Its awful. Paige has entered into this incredibly exciting period where she is developing in leaps and bounds and doing something new and exciting literally every single day. Of course at the same time, for a variety of reasons, not the least of which is the previously mentioned walking bit, I am finding it harder and harder to find the time to write. But enough of the excuses.

On March 15, 2009, Paige turned one year old! The first year was incredible. Paige decided that she wanted to master walking by her first birthday, and she pretty much did. Here is a photo of Paige in her pretty birthday dress, and below is a video of Paige's friends singing her Happy Birthday. Due to the rain, we ended up cramming almost 30 people into our flat. It was a total zoo, but everyone (including the birthday girl) seemed to enjoy themselves. The second video is Paige walking to her mommy on the big day.