(Almost) 11 Month Update

Our little girl is growing so fast! We are continually amazed and grateful for her joyful personality, her love for her parents, and her wonder and curiosity for life - even in our boring little house. We love being around her, and it is evident that she has such a loving heart already. She is definitely starting to show that she is a little person and not a baby anymore! Her introverted, laid back nature shows through (especially around groups of people), though she is certainly outgoing in the comfort of home. While we try to be careful not to allow ourselves to build her up primarily for what she does (more on that in a later post), we are blown away each day at what she is learning or doing. I wrote the first draft of this post two days ago, and when I revisited it, some achievements or milestones already seemed outdated! Here are some new things in Mikayla's world lately:

• She LOVES to hear music and singing. She has also started to dance on command, and has even started to dance spontaneously when her little Mozart cube plays.
• She knows who made her, responding to the question with an exuberant single hand raised upwards. Two hands thrown upwards shows how big she is.
• Mikayla regularly says mamma, dadda, and uh-oh, and we thought we just heard a "ki-gu" for "kitty" when Niko walked into the room.
• Speaking of words, she says "uh-oh" whenever she drops something on the floor as well as whenever she plain old feels like it. Take last Sunday for example. Our pastor just finished reading Romans 3:23, and Mikayla followed it up with an authoritative "uh oh!" Awkward. We are working on context.
• When asked what a cow and kitty says, she responds with "mmm" and "ah-wo," respectively. She can also pick her cow out of an animal lineup when we ask her where it is.
• She also just started with the "n" consonant sounds, which means "no" is on the horizon.
• Though Mikayla enjoys flipping through her board books on her own, she won't sit very still for long for us to read with her. I'm sure that time will come. Hopefully soon.
• She is cruising around on everything, including the walls, and has even started to walk while only holding onto one of our hands.
• Mikayla is fascinated by doors and light switches. Particularly the one big kitchen cupboard that she can reach: we were playing Ticket to Ride this afternoon over the din of her repeatedly opening and slamming it because, well, she can. No pinched fingers yet.
• She loves throwing her food onto the floor, even though she knows she will be disciplined. Most of the time she looks directly at us and still throws it on the floor with an "uh oh!" Yes, Mikayla, Romans 3:23 applies to that.
• Finally, Mikayla has never met a person or situation that didn't warrant a super cute wave. She doesn't always do it on command, and her favorite time to wave is when someone starts walking away after imploring her to wave.