Scared Sign, Telling Me to Sit, Identifies Orange

Last night, Heidi slept all night without waking up... or at least without waking me up! Sometimes she does wake up in the middle of the night. I hear her turn on her musical bird thing or her butterfly that plays music (both are on the side of her crib). Then, she usually just goes back to sleep. Last night, I put her to bed at about 8pm and she slept until about 8am. It was so nice to have a night of uninterrupted sleep!

Lately, whenever she says "toes," she doesn't just say "toes." Instead, she usually calls them "wee wee toes," like from the This Little Piggy toe game.

Heidi has been telling me to come sit next to her on the couch sometimes lately... especially if she is watching a movie and she wants to cuddle and/or have some milk. She tells me "a-sit... a-sit" and pats the place next to her on the couch.

Oh, she also does the "scared" sign now. We learned that one from watching a Signing Time dvd. Also, we were watching The Little Mermaid the other day and when the shark was chasing after Ariel and the fish, I kept telling Heidi that it was scary... and did the scared sign (she copied me, usually only uses one hand to do it instead of two, though). Then, later when we were looking at a book about fish... I did the scared sign and was telling her that the sharks and whales were scary (she copied me again doing the sign with just one hand). When we went to run the car through the carwash yesterday evening, Heidi was scared of the shooting water and all of the equipment in the carwash. I could tell by her facial expression and her body language (she was kind of turning to the side and making a scared face). When I asked her if she was scared of the water, she showed me the scared sign. Today before nap time, we were looking at a few books, as we usually do. One of the books I had picked out was a book about frogs. They were real frogs, not cartoon frogs. There were big frogs, little frogs, pond frogs, tree frogs, hopping frogs, etc. Well, I don't think she liked this book. She kept trying to close the book and not look at the pages. She also gave me the scared sign. I guess frogs scare her!

We watched Frosty the Snowman today (Heidi's choice). There is a little girl named Karen in the cartoon that cries a couple of times. When Karen started crying one time in the movie, I said "She's sad." I have been trying to show Heidi when I am sad by fake crying lately.... like if she does something that might hurt my feelings (ie- tear down my block tower or refuse to give me a kiss). Well, the next time Karen started crying in the cartoon, I really think Heidi said "She's sad" or "She sad." I asked her to say that again... and she said it again. I am pretty sure that is what she was saying. I was a little surprised that she had picked that up so quickly.

Also, yesterday while we were watching The Little Mermaid, the evil sea witch was singing a song (I think it was around the time she took Ariel's voice away) and in part of the song she was singing something about a "poor unfortunate sooooouuul." Heidi starting singing with her... and was singing "sooouuul" with the sea witch.

Yesterday, I saw Heidi sitting on the couch pretending to feed her baby doll. I am not sure if I asked her what she was doing, but she told me "Baby said milk." I am pretty sure she said those words. I was shocked at that too. It is really hard to believe, I think, that an almost 18-month-old can be picking up So Much! Everyday I am amazed at what she is learning.

The other day, Heidi learned to correctly identify the color black. Now, she also can identify the color orange too! When we were drawing/coloring today, I was telling her each color name and drawing a picture with each color and then asked her which color was orange. She picked the correct one. Then I asked her a couple of times later, and she got it right again. Then, when I put her pajamas on her... I asked her what color was on her pajamas. There is a lot of orange and an orange strip down the front that I was pointing to. She said orange... so I think I can say that she is correctly identifying the color orange now too.

Here's a list of even more words I have noticed her saying now:

zebra (szeeper)
snowman (no-man or mo-man)
cow
seal
girl (gir)
orange (ongzh or onzses)
bread (has been saying this for a long time)
mermaid (manand)
slide (side)
paper (pee-poo or pa-poo)
yucky
oh yucky
sit
bug

I guess looking back at this blog entry, It looks like we watch a lot of tv/movies. I don't think it is really that bad to watch SOME tv. I think she is learning some things from watching the shows that we watch. We talk about things that are going on in the shows (I guess I talk about what's going on), but I think she is learning from some of what we talk about. She has learned how to sign "scared" (along with other signs)... learning about animals... learning about emotions/feelings... and is learning more about language.