Eat, drink, and be Meri :D: May 2012

How do all babies somehow learn to yell "MINE!" and understand perfectly the meaning, when you can't recall ever even using the word (and very purposefully not using the word)? It is a mystery, and one that I'm pondering a lot lately, due to this sweet child of mine ;)

She's also becoming a mini Paris Hilton--she calls everything "hot." Granted, she's referring to the temperature-- she'll say "hooooot?" before trying any food or drink, and before getting under the stream in the tub, and poutily at the park when the sun shines on all the sand and plastic, making it very uncomfortable---so now that it's summer, we hear that word a lot :)

Other developments: She now signs for "bath," "play," and "water." She makes the water sign when she's thirsty and when she sees water or hears the word (she also signs water when we say "otter," cutely :))
And again, she's crazy-adept at recognizing words we're talking about. Headband and ipod are some words we recently discovered she knows, based on her running to get them when we bring them up in discussion (well, in the case of headband, she heard a song about a headband on Glee, and ran to put her own headband on--on the back of her head, of course).

And finally, her hair is now long enough that she has little ringlets at the ends :3

Here are some recent pics of this adorable ~~baby~~ toddler:

Where is Meridian???

Uh oh, she's on to us! Safety locks, here we come!

Smooshing her face into an inflatable globe :p

This is from when we checked out one of the student protests about the tuition hikes--Meridian was grooving to the beat of all the banging and clanging of pots and pans (des casseroles in French--I guess it takes going to a protest for us to learn new French words :P)

Reading on the potty:

Finally we're not the worst parents in town anymore--we got her a sun bonnet!

...an adorable sun bonnet!

Okay, I've put this off for waaaay too long, and I apologize to those of you who haven't seen pics of Meridian since Christmas... And I'll try to fill in the details of all her new developments the best I can, although she's growing way too fast for me to keep up!

She started walking in January at 10 months and has been unstoppable since. It didn’t take too long for that to bore her, and now she’s on to running, climbing, and jumping. A couple weeks ago she was dancing around and accidentally learned how to walk backwards/moonwalk; now she'll do it as a way to ham it up---hamming it up is a favorite pastime of hers (she couldn't possibly have gotten that from her papa :p). She also loves to dance, and she will do it spontaneously or by request. Her favorite song to dance to is "I Like to Dance" by Yo Gabba Gabba.

She has also had a talking/understanding explosion. Around the time she started to walk, she began to talk. Her first word--after mama and papa--was ball (she is obsessed with balls, especially soccer balls; she is actually pretty skilled at kicking a soccer ball around, and she tries to join in any time she sees anyone playing soccer at the park). Other favorite words to say are dog, cat (accompanied by squeals if she sees one), hi and bye (while waving to everyone we pass on the street, and every time papa leaves for work or comes home)...there are several words she has only said once, like "up" and "bonjour" and "jacket." It's kind of scary how extensive her comprehension is--Ian and I were just Talking to each other one day and mentioned a jacket, and the next thing we knew, Meri was trudging in with her jacket in tow (this was a couple months ago, before she said the word jacket). Stuff like that has happened numerous times since, and each time it reminds us that we better watch what we say!

She's really good at sign language, too-- it's weird how she will only sign certain words, and other words she'll only say--there aren't any words that she'll both speak and sign. She signs for: milk, shoes, more, and possibly others (we probably miss a lot). She tried to sign, "I Love You," but it's a pretty difficult sign. Her absolute favorite sign is "hat," though--she loves Cat in the Hat, and she figured out that she can use the hat sign to ask for that book, and she also does the sign whenever she sees his picture. By the way, she loooves Dr. Seuss books; they're the only ones she will sit all the way through, and interact with. Some favorites are: Cat in the Hat, Gren Eggs and Ham, Hop on Pop, One Fish Two Fish, Red fish Blue Fish, Marvin K Mooney Will You Please Go Now, and Mr. Brown Can Moo, Can You? (her current favorite)

On addition to words, she learned how to do an elephant's trumpet, and she will do it any time she sees an elephant or when anyone saus the word (and also apropos of nothing). She was in heaven watching a youtube clip of an elephant playing soccer--two of her favorite things!

Meridian has also fallen in love with babies. She squeals whenever we pass by a baby, or she even sees a picture of one. She'll wave and smile and say, "Baby!" She's also interested in dolls, and she will hug them and carry them around. She loves giving hugs in general, too.

Another love of hers is music.She started out with a tonette, and progressed to a harmonica, which she is a prodigy at :p See?

I'll write more as I think of things, but I’ve just about used up the time Meri has allotted me :p
So on to the pics! (The most recent ones are the sunny/grassy ones--sorry, they didn't upload chronologically!)