My Amazing One Year Old

So Ariella just turned 13 months old, and I swear she is getting smarter by the minute! Here are some things that she is doing now. Actually, most of it she has been doing for about 2 months now but that is beside the point!

She calls our cat by his name – Isis. Ok, so she says ‘Ice’ because the last ‘is’ is difficult for her. But she comprehends that the cat has a name, and can approximate the saying of it. She stands at the door, like Mama does countless times during the day, and calls for him to come inside too!

There is LOTS of generalization going on with her! My parents also have a cat. His name is Max. While she can say Max, if you ask her to ‘Call Max’ she immediately says ‘Ice!’ with the smoochy calling a cat noise, and goes to their back door. Now this is interesting because it is a roundabout generalization. She not only knows that we have a cat, but that the animal my parents have is also a cat, and therefore calls him Isis like she does at home – generalizing the whole cat routine.

She understands that some things are shaped the same way, and will try to put all her ‘circular’ toys into the circle hole in her shape sorter. Most of the time they get stuck because they are too big, but she tries just the same.

When she has a cold, or a runny nose, she will blow her nose into a tissue. Not each and every time, but she knows there’s stuff in there that needs to come out, and she will blow to get it out. Actually, she does that sometimes whether or not she HAS said tissue. 🙂 More fun clean up for Mama!

If her food is too hot, she will blow on it to cool it off like Mama does.

The other day in Wegmans, I made the horrible mistake of letting her see me put bananas in the cart. Seeing that this is one of her favorite foods and words to say, she immediately wanted those bananas! I gave her the bunch, which of course was my second mistake. I didn’t weigh them so I couldn’t give her one and was trying my best to ignore her pleas of ‘Ba-NANA’. Suddenly, she took my hand, flipped it over and put a banana into it. She looked at me pointedly and said very clearly “BA-NANA!” as if to say, ‘Hello, Lady! You peel this and feed it to me, remember?’

She just started giving ‘real’ hugs and kisses too! If you ask her for a kiss, she puckers up and gives you a kiss on the lips. Her hugs are getting longer and bigger as well.

Another awesome thing that started this Tuesday in fact, is saying her name! It is a basic apporoximation, but anyone listening would not be able to argue that she is in fact saying – ‘Ariella’, even though she adds a few more l’s into that verbalization. So cute!

All of these things are normal progression. It’s just that I didn’t expect my ONE year old to be doing them! I have taught in many a Preschools over the years, and this just seems to be a bit more than she should be doing/saying/comprehending at only 1 years old! Maybe it is completely normal, I have never had a 1 year old before after all. No matter what, she will always be amazing to me, because I am her Mama. 🙂