Saturday, March 3, 2007

Eighteen Months Old!


Maya turned 18 months old on the 2nd! Although today was her "official" first day of church nursery, we've been sneaking her in for about a month now and she's loved it. Well, at least she did love it! We found out today that she apparently just liked the excitement of illegal, underage entrance. Now that she's old enough, she doesn't seem to want to go! Little rebel!

She had another "first" last week when she tried out the McDonald's Playland. I thought she'd be pretty timid, but she definitely proved me wrong and had lots of fun going through the tunnels with Abby.

This little girl is really having a language explosion and for future record I'll share some of her words. Most of these she'll sign and say at the same time.

*basketball (bassaball), baby, doll, horse, duck, cat, cracker, apple, banana (with a very cute sign), water, pants, shoes, sleep, pocket, socks, nose, head, hair, eyes, mouth, fish (another really cute sign), please, dog, car, hat (she’s decided she REALLY likes hats!), jacket, pizza, Adam, ball, rock, Uh-Oh! (we hear this way too often!), Ow!, No!No!No! (Usually spoken to babies in books when she pretends they bite her fingers), Shhhhh, book, cow, eat, bease (The word baby Abby used for blankie), more, bye-bye, Maya, Qiu (She answers to both. We still call her Qiu more often than Maya.)

Maya's first phrase was "please more water", although she's only done that once. She often pairs "bye-bye" with "dad", even if she's saying goodbye to someone else. I think she's just used to saying bye to Dad. She says some words very fast, like basketball, and other words slowly like fish.

When she's decided she's done visiting with someone she will say "bye" and walk away. (Sometimes I wish adults could get away with that!) Anytime she sees a medical professional she doesn't even give them a chance. She yells a very quick "bye-bye" and attempts a speedy exit.

We think her language aquisition has been pretty fascinating. An adult certainly couldn't do what she's done in the last 7 months. I'm sure they could learn more words, but they'd be saying it all with a Chinese accent and would probably always struggle with certain English sounds. A group from Spain adopted babies from Guiping the week after us. Isn't it amazing to think that she could just as easily be speaking Spanish now?

I wish she'd speak a little bit more when other people are around. She gets kind of a "deer in the headlights" type of look and it's often hard to get a peep out of her. Well, anything that sounds like a word anyway. She's still a shrieker when she sees something she wants--usually food. She'll scream and then sweetly say and sign "please". I have to admit, she does get our attention! She's a smart girl!