This week Alex has said a couple of two word phrases. Her Grandma gave her a new spring coat with flowers on it last weekend and when Alex saw it she said, “new coat.” And yesterday she was watching Sesame Street and Elmo’s World was all about babies. They were showing all kinds of baby animals and Alex looked at me and said - “baby duck.” I’m sure that soon when I ask her things like if she wants to go to the park she will say - “that’s an interesting proposition.”

Alex’s vocabulary has really exploded recently - I’m going to make a list of all the words that she knows - I think there is at least 50. A lot of what she says isn’t that clear but she is really trying to talk. It surprises me now when she actually answers a question that I ask her. It used to be that I was having a running dialogue with myself. I’ll ask - what do you want for lunch? And she always answers - cheese She can also say her name now and the way she says it is SO cute.

At the end of last week Alex started saying ok for yes or when she was agreeing with me. For example, do you want lunch? okay. Then she started shortening it to just k or kay because she kind of draws the word out. It’s really funny when she says it. Then on Monday afternoon she started saying nokay - talk about a mixed messge

A couple of days ago she also started saying umm when I ask her a question. Alex where are your socks? Ummm….. Too funny I know she got ok from me because I say it quite a bit but I don’t know where she got umm because Marc and I don’t say it.

Yesterday afternoon Alex pointed at me and said. “mama”. I pointed at her and said. “Alex”. She then said Alex!!! It didn’t really have the x at the end but she definately said it - this is the first time that she has said her name!!!

Alex has started to say No - she has only been saying it for a couple of days but I’m already starting to get tired of it. On the other hand it also makes me laugh because of the way she says it - she has such a cute little voice and she really draws the word out. I’m going to have to get used to it - I think she is going to say it a lot because she has heard the word so much And it already seems that she is saying it even when she doesn’t mean No.

I am starting to realize the things that I say to Alex a lot because she is starting to repeat them to me. When she does something I ask her to do like put her shirt in the laundry basket, she will say ‘Good Girl’ while she is doing it And now when she is excited about something like new photos or a cookie she will say ‘Oh boy!’ It’s so funny to hear her say both of these things.

When Alex would take a bath she would always attempt to drink the bath water, which drove Marc crazy. Marc would say - “that’s not juice”. So now when Alex gets in the tub she points at the water and says - “No juice?” Now any drink that isn’t in her sippy cup is ‘no juice’. She calls coffee, water, coke - anything that we are drinking - no juice. Yesterday we went for a walk in the snow to get out of the house for a little while and ended up at the cafe down the street. She was pointing at everyone’s drink and saying no juice.

Similarly she is also obsessed with stars and no stars. She has really become aware of all the stars in her room and loves it when Marc closes the door and turns the lights over and the stars on the ceiling glow. She says - stars. stars. stars … Then when she is in the kitchen she points at the ceiling and says - ‘no stars’. She did the same thing yesterday when we went outside - she pointed to the sky and said - ‘no stars’.

She is really obsessed with the words that she knows and the thoughts that she is able to communicate to us so she says them over and over and over.

Alex is either obsessed with her Dad or she just really likes the word. After Marc leaves for work in the morning Alex drags his pajamas out of our room while saying Dada, Dada, Dada, Dada - over and over. She also calls things that Marc really likes such as pretzles Dada. She was pointing at the counter and saying Dada - it took me a minute to realize that she wanted a pretzle.

Yesterday she was pulling out Marc’s cd’s and carrying them over to me and each time she handed me one she would say Dada. I think the cutest use of it was the other night when Marc was reading her the little Princess books that she has. One of them was Beauty and the Beast and when Marc got to the end where the Beast turns into the Prince, Alex pointed the the Prince and said Dada

Alexandra’s language abilities have really exploded recently and I think she will be talking quite a bit very soon. She has quite a few words now and she is constantly imitating us. Occasionally she will say some thing that we didn’t just say to her and will say it very clearly. For example, the other night Marc was making dinner and Alex was playing in the kitchen. She pointed to the stove and clearly said cook. We were really surprised because she has never said that word and we didn’t say it to her first. Another funny one is Marc gets annoyed because Alex tries to drink her bath water so he started telling her that it wasn’t juice. Now when she gets in the tub she always looks at Marc and says no juice.

Some of her words now are baby, juice, dog, bird, mama, dada, diaper, and teeth. I know there are more than that but I can’t think of them right now. She also still talks in her own little language a lot of the time.

Alexandra is 17 months old today - unfortunately I don’t think it is going to be a very exciting day for us. She is just getting over a bad cold and her latest new tooth trauma. If she had been feeling well enough we would have gone to music class today but she is still really congested and it is pouring out and I don’t want to take her out in the rain when she isn’t feeling well. It seems like it is always pouring on the day that we have music.

She still doesn’t talk too much but can say a lot more words - she’s stubborn though - she’ll say a word once and then we can’t get her to repeat it. Recently she has said horse, ok, and something that sounded like dinosaur (she is obsessed with pictures of dinosaurs). She seems to say more to Marc - our theory is that since she is with me all of the time I anticipate what she wants and she doesn’t need to say anything.

Lately her favorite activities are reading books, playing instruments while listening to kid’s music, climbing on the furniture and eating. She still LOVES to eat and even being sick she has had a really good appetite.