The Ashlan show: The Ashlan Chronicles

This is going to be long (as many of my blog posts are). I have been noting on my phone the little things that Ashlan has been learning and finally got to the computer to type them all out today.

Ashlan is doing very well with knowing parts of the body. Back in December, she already knew nose and eyes and when we told our Pediatrician that, he said babies usually don’t start identifying body parts until 18 months or so, and she was only a year back then. She now knows nose, eyes, ears, teeth, feet/shoes and head, and points to them when we ask (when she’s in the mood, haha!). We bought her a Mr. Potato Head for Christmas and she didn’t even care about him for at least two weeks. Then she began to play with him and when she would remove something I’d tell her what she was removing and tell her to put it back in its’ place if it was empty. Sometimes it worked and sometimes it didn’t, but I’m sure the repetition helped a lot with that. We also think she knows feet, but that’s because when we hand her her shoes, we say, “Now put them on your feet”, and she tries to do that. It’s so cute because she will sit there for a few minutes and try before she gets frustrated and then just ends up handing them to us to put on her, haha! Sometimes she gets her toes in though, so at least she has the idea!

She spins around a lot (this is something sort of new). So whenever she would spin around, I’d start singing, “Ring around the rosie”...well, the other day she was just standing in the middle of the room and I started singing that song, and she started to spin! Haha! She is always cracking us up!

She answers ‘no’ to a lot more things than we thought she’d be doing by now and for most of them, she genuinely means no (at least we think). She used to not know the difference but over the last few weeks, we think she is getting much better at that now! As I said before, it will be nice when she can talk and finally communicate with us, but I will really miss her little gibberish talk!

As I said in a previous blog entry, she can say, “pig”. She can also point to it on the page. She can also point to a kitty, doggie, cow, etc, when we ask her. What’s cool about that is that she can decipher it from two different books! One is a cartoon book and the other is a book of real animal pictures, and she can still point to those animals on there. She has done it multiple times now, and she seems confident when she does it too, so we know she knows what she’s doing.

Lately, she has been pushing herself around on her bus (finally!). Her legs have been long on it for awhile, but she’s finally starting to do it. Also, we have been taking her to the park lately (since the weather has been in the 80’s and gorgeous!), where we let her run loose and she runs around squealing and goes down slides (with our help) and is so out of breath by the time we’re done! She really likes to do that so we try to go a few times a week and it wears her out so hopefully it makes her sleep better. However, she’s really doing awesome in that department again. She now goes down completely awake for all naps and night time, and put herself to sleep within minutes and without any fuss. In fact, she fusses if we’re trying to hold her now to rock her to sleep! We can’t believe how grown up she is now! I don't know if I mentioned it with the last post, but she has her 4th tooth...it's on the bottom again. We think she's beginning to get one on top though because it's a little white and seems to be protruding a bit, but it hasn't broken through yet. She hasn't been cranky, just a little like a lost puppy. It's so cute that we have to pick her up and love on her! :)

So, the other day when I blogged about us going swimming at my parents pool, I forgot to mention that Ashlan was wearing a 3T suit. A 3T suit!!!! And she was in a swim diaper, so it's not like she had one of her big cloth diapers to hide behind! She’s also in 24 month rompers and onesies, and she’s only 14 months old. She is definitely a big, healthy girl! :)

The cutest thing happened today…Caesar gave Ashlan a kissie on the cheek! It was cute because he is still skittish around her. She went through a stage of hitting, even though we tried to stop her and did many times, but her actions were still too jerky and Caesar ended up getting it a lot of the time. He’s still stuck on that stage of her, because now she is so much better. She was okay to him before she was crawling, and then for a little bit after that, but once she started walking, it was all over for poor Caesar (at that was just a little before 10 months). So, she has basically been on his bad side for four months now! So today, he gave me a kissie when I asked, and then because Ashlan was standing there, I told him to give Ashlan one and he did! So then of course, Ashlan gave him one, but it was on his shoulder because I moved his head away since it looked like she was getting too close for his comfort. She just loves Caesar and he is starting to warm up to her again but it’s taking longer this time.

And we’re all looking forward to Grammy and Aunt Katie’s visit in a few days! I know they will have so much fun playing with Ashlan!

Ashlan wanted her tutu on this time! Notice all the magnetic refrigerator letters in the back that she knocked over the bucket which they were in.