Kids are amazing!

Alexis is actively working on her verbal skills. She currently knows seven words ("ma ma", "da da", "yes", "no", "shoes", "juice", "duck", and "rock"). She has been saying the first five words for a while, and I understand why these were her first words. Duck and rock were added this weekend. On Friday, as I was sitting on the recliner, Alexis walked up to me and started poking me and saying "duck" repeatedly; she then handed me a stuffed duck and repeated her new word. It was very weird. I don't know where and when she picked up the word, but she definately knows what a duck is. She said "rock" on Easter when she was playing with Paw Paw's rocks which she loves. In addition to her "real" words, Alexis also has other words that she uses like "da" for dog. Hearing her talk is so much fun!

In addition to her budding speaking skills, Alexis has been working on other skills including learning body parts. She currently knows six body parts including belly, feet, hands, pee pee, head, and nose. She has known the first four for a while and added the last two in the past week. I just asked her where her head was one day, and she threw her hands on her head and started rubbing her hair. I asked her about her nose, and she immediately poked her nose. She also appears to know what her mouth is, because I can tell her to put food in her mouth and she can do it, but she does not identify it when I ask her. She also has learned how to build a block tower. She has been making a two block tower for months, but this weekend I was able to get her to build multiple four, five, and six block towers. Of course, she enjoyed destroying the towers more than building them.

While we are very excited about Alexis' development, we are also trying to teach Alexis to be more gentle. She has been pinching and pushing. I have seen her do this not only at home, but also at daycare. So we are trying to teach Alexis that it is not okay to hurt other people; "gentle" is becoming a common word in our home. Hopefully this phase will be short-lived. I guess we shall see!