"Hi Sister!" ...and Grace's other words.

I have been trying to keep a log of Grace's words for months now. Her first word was "duck' at the ripe old age of 9 months... She has learned a steady flow of words ever since and has become quite the chatter-box. She just seems to pick up everything she hears and commits it to memory. With the arrival of Lily I have felt that I had no time to keep up this log of words, so I sat down to try and gather what I had expected to be my last batch of words to add to her list. As I was writing, I realized that this list was full of phrases and not words.

"No like it!"...

"More please."...

"Read story mommy."...

"Bath time."...

"No pee in potty."...

" Night Night Christmas Tree."... "

Jingle bells, jingle bells, jingle all way."...

"Merry Christmas Tree!"..."

Listen,...Music"...

"Listen, ... Dog."....

"No barking Dan!"

"Stop crying Lily!"...

"Hi Sister!"

...and so on and so forth. That is when I realized that Grace is communicating... all the time. She only gets frustrated when we are too busy or distracted to listen. Forget trying to log Grace's words, she is talking, and asking for things and telling us things... So no longer will I be adding to Grace's list of words, she is able to ask for just about anything she wants. Is picking up new things with ease, (i.e. Christmas Tree, Candy Cane, Christmas Ball, Christmas Wreath, Stocking, Santa Claus, Reindeer, etc...)

I had heard Grace sing her alphabet in bits a pieces, I know that she knew most of it and mumble and stumbled past the parts she was unsure of, but the other night Brian and I were in the front seat of the car, driving back from getting our Christmas tree and from the back seat, Grace busts out in "A-B-C-D- EFG -HIJK - LMNOP - Q-R-S - TUV - W-X-Y and Z... Blown away... I think that is the best way to describe the looks on Brian's and my face as she completed the entire alphabet... and added a clap and "Yeah!" at the end to boot! Not long after this amazing feat, Grace counted to 16 for us. We have 16 stairs in out house and have for months counted them one at at time as we go up for bath time or nap time, whatever... So, I will not be writing a whole lot about Grace and her "new" words, or the fact that she can sing Twinkle Twinkle all the way through, or Ring around the Rosie... she is a walking, talking little girl and she never ceases to amaze me.